


Time Waits For No One

by AmyPond45



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 12, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossing Timelines, First Time, M/M, Mention of past Dean/Benny and past Dean/Cas in another reality, Time Travel, Timeline Swap, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 08:39:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11181090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyPond45/pseuds/AmyPond45
Summary: During a routine hunt, Sam swaps places in time with his 13-year-old self. Dean and young-Sam try to fix it, taking a little road trip on the way, and Dean thinks maybe things could be different this time. Set vaguely between the events of s12ep14 and s12ep17.





	1. "Say It's Only a Paper Moon"

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by wonderful artwork by [kuwlshadow](http://kuwlshadow.livejournal.com/profile) for the 2017 [wincest-reversebang](http://wincest-reverse.livejournal.com/profile). Her prompt was titled "Young Again," but she kindly let me write a time-travel story instead. Go here to leave her some love! The title of this story is a Rolling Stones song, but I also felt inspired by the 1973 father-daughter road-trip movie, _Paper Moon,_ so the lyrics from the first verse of the title song are the titles for my four chapters. Thanks to [onlythefireborn](http://onlythefireborn.livejournal.com/profile) and [smalltrolven](http://smalltrolven.livejournal.com/profile) for being extremely helpful beta readers. Also, many thanks to the mods of this bang. It's been a fabulous trip!

Setting: Arcadia National Park, Early Spring, 2017

**//**//**

"Sam?"

Dean looked up from the skin-walker he'd just ganked as a flash of light nearly blinded him.

"Sammy?"

The flash came from the direction in which his brother had run moments before, in hot pursuit of another skin-walker, which had bolted when it realized it was facing the Winchesters.

They got that a lot these days. Monsters seemed to know about them, seemed more than afraid, and most of the time just tried to run from them. Dean had mixed feelings about stabbing anything in the back, even a blood-sucking monster, and he definitely preferred facing angry, vengeful evil than shirking, cowardly runners. Still, the job was the job, and getting it done was paramount to whatever angsty moments of self-doubt the monsters were experiencing as they faced their imminent demise.

"Sam!"

When his vision cleared, Dean didn't hesitate; he dashed in the direction Sam had gone, bellowing his name. The woods were darker and thicker here, and Dean nearly tripped as he staggered into a small clearing where the moon's light revealed a small figure standing alone. A boy, no more than twelve or thirteen, stood silently watching him, his face a mask of false bravado that Dean instantly recognized as thinly-veiled terror.

"Sam?"

Recognition hit Dean like a kick in the gut. This was Sam, all right, but not the Sam Dean had been battling monsters with only moments before. This was Sam as he hadn't been for about twenty years, young and small and vulnerable and Dean's responsibility. Dean's _little_ brother in every sense of the word.

"What the hell?" Dean frowned, working the problem as quickly as his adrenaline-pumped brain would allow. He ticked through the possibilities, starting with shapeshifter, djinn-induced hallucination, even the skin-walker itself, maybe taking this form as a way to protect itself.

Nothing clicked or made sense. Instead, every cell in Dean's body screamed _Sam! _, eclipsing every doubt and protest in Dean's mind, causing him to throw all caution to the wind. Dean knew he probably shouldn't trust his instincts here, but there was no way in hell he could imagine that this kid was evil. It just wasn't in him.__

__But if this was really Sam, what had happened? A de-aging spell? Time travel?_ _

__"Sammy?" Dean tried again._ _

__The kid clearly didn't recognize him. His eyes widened and he took a step back, stance widening as he considered whether to turn and run. Dean knew that was what Sam was thinking because it was what Dean had taught him to do in this situation. _If you're alone with something or somebody who's bigger and stronger than you, you run, you hear me, Sammy? You run like hell.__ _

__"How do you know my name?" the boy demanded, small voice as brash and bold as he could make it, given that it was still pretty high-pitched. "Where am I?"_ _

__"Arcadia National Forest," Dean said, answering the second question first. "My brother's name is Sam. I'm – we were hunting and we got separated."_ _

__Dean wasn't sure why he didn't just tell this kid who he was, but the suspicion and fear in young-Sam's eyes warned him to take it slow._ _

__"You're – you're a hunter?" young-Sam asked. Some of the suspicion slipped away from his expression, replaced by the beginnings of trust, and Dean knew he'd made the right choice._ _

__'That's right," Dean said. "Me and my brother were hunting a couple of skin-walkers. Took down one of them right over there." Dean gestured back the way he had come._ _

__Young-Sam nodded, relief softening his features as he found himself in familiar territory._ _

__"Yeah," he said. "The other one's in the woods back there." He gestured behind him, and it occurred to Dean that young-Sam had come running when he heard Dean call his name. Young-Sam's first instinct had been to run to Dean, even though he didn't seem to recognize him at all now that they were face to face._ _

___Maybe my voice sounded familiar,_ Dean thought. _Okay, I can work with that.__ _

__"You didn't happen to see my brother back there, did you?" he asked. "Tall dude, long hair, sad eyes?"_ _

__Young-Sam shook his head. "No. Nobody. Just the body."_ _

__"Huh," Dean nodded, then lifted an eyebrow. "What are you doing out here, Sam? Where're your folks?"_ _

__Young-Sam's eyes widened, then his jaw clenched. Dean watched the familiar tells of the kid's's nervousness and agitation, his terror battling with his training, hovering just under the surface._ _

__"I – I'm not sure," young-Sam confessed, and Dean had to restrain himself from chastising the kid, really laying into him for naively letting a stranger know he was alone. "My dad and my brother are around here someplace..."_ _

__He lifted terrified eyes to Dean's again, seeming to realize he was giving too much away, and his stance widened, his expression turning fierce, defiant._ _

__"They're on their way," young-Sam said with such obviously false confidence it nearly broke Dean's heart, except that it made him mad as hornets. "They'll be here any minute."_ _

__"Right," Dean muttered. He stared at the kid, at his slightly-too-big hand-me-down hoodie over a sloppy T-shirt that Dean recognized as one of his, the rolled-up jeans that had probably been Dean's, too._ _

__If he wasn't so sure this was Sam, _his_ Sam, Dean probably never would've rolled his eyes and shaken his head so sharply._ _

__But he did. Because it was._ _

__"Okay." Dean squared his shoulders and put on his most commanding hunter-in-charge face. "I'm gonna tell you what I think and you're gonna listen, okay? Because I think we both know something weird has just happened, and I don't mean killing skin-walkers."_ _

__Young-Sam swallowed and blinked, licked his lips nervously, then nodded._ _

__"Now, we're gonna look for my brother, although I got a bad feeling about that," Dean said, keeping his voice low and steady as much for young-Sam as to hold his own panic at bay. "Then you're gonna help me burn these bodies, you got me? Think you can handle that?"_ _

__Young-Sam nodded again._ _

__"Then I'll help you find your family," Dean finished. "Although I'm not gonna lie to you. I got a bad feeling about that, too."_ _

__To his credit, young-Sam accepted Dean's proposal with another nod, although Dean half-expected him to bolt as they started their search. Young-Sam watched with a confused frown as Dean made calls to each of his brother's cell phones, leaving voicemails on every one, even though Dean was fairly certain the older Sam wouldn't get the messages. Then Dean and young-Sam scoured the area, yelling Sam's name. It felt strange to call for Sam when the kid was right there next to him, but Dean was determined not to leave a stone unturned._ _

__It turned out to be young-Sam who found the scratchings on the trunk of a tree near the body of the second skin-walker, the one the older Sam must have killed._ _

__"It looks like some kind of symbol," young-Sam said as Dean crouched down beside him to take a look. "And this red paint's still wet."_ _

__"It's blood," Dean corrected, clenching his jaw. "Damn it. Why do these things keep happening?"_ _

__"What things?" young-Sam asked, his natural curiosity overcoming his earlier fear, which was way cuter than it should have been, from Dean's perspective._ _

__Dean shook his head. "Witches. Spells. Time-travel. That symbol is part of a time-travel spell our grandfather taught us. It looks like our skin-walker was a witch."_ _

__"But why would he make a time-travel spell here?" young-Sam asked, eyes wide as he wiped his bloodied fingers on his jeans._ _

__"Maybe he was trying to escape," Dean shrugged. "Travel back through time to someplace safer."_ _

__"It didn't work," young-Sam noted as he glanced at the skin-walker's body._ _

__"Or maybe it did," Dean said grimly. He had a sinking feeling that at least some of that blood was his brother's; if so, they wouldn't find the older Sam in these woods, or anywhere else in this timeline. "Damn it."_ _

__"You think maybe your brother's traveled back in time?" young-Sam suggested, and it almost made Dean smile. Sam was always a smart kid._ _

__"Yeah, maybe," Dean sighed. "That doesn't explain you, though."_ _

__Young-Sam sucked in a breath. "What do you mean?"_ _

__Instead of answering, Dean reached down and grabbed the dead skin-walker under the arms._ _

__"Get his legs, will you?" he said. "Let's burn 'em out in the clearing."_ _

__It was gruesome work, dragging the bodies into a pile, dousing them with lighter fluid and dropping a lit matchbook on top. Young-Sam did his part, though, not complaining once. He wasn't nearly as moody as Dean remembered, but then as far as young-Sam knew Dean was a total stranger, not a trusted brother he could bitch and moan to. Sam had always been good with strangers, quiet and unnoticeable, keeping to himself to avoid unwanted attention. Dean had drilled that into him at an early age, just as their father had done for Dean. _Stay under the radar. Don't get caught. Don't let anyone find out what we really do.__ _

__"How long have you been hunting?" young-Sam asked as they stood watching the bodies burn, staying carefully out of the path of the acrid smoke._ _

__"All my life," Dean answered with a shrug. "Mom died when we were kids, then Dad raised us in the life. You?"_ _

__"Same," young-Sam said softly. "You ever wish you could get out? Have a normal life?"_ _

__Dean could feel the kid looking up at him, so he glanced down, met the gaze of those almond-shaped eyes, glimpsed the fire's reflection flickering there before he looked away again._ _

__"Never," he lied, smooth as you please, just like he always did when Sam was a kid. "This is the job I was born to do, no question. You?"_ _

__"I'm getting out someday," young-Sam said with an innocent conviction that nearly broke Dean's heart. "Gonna go to college, maybe become a teacher so I can help kids like my brother."_ _

__Dean raised an eyebrow and regarded young-Sam with surprise. "I never knew you wanted to be a teacher."_ _

__Young-Sam shrugged and shuffled his feet, hands deep in the pockets of his jacket. "My brother dropped out of school," he said without looking at Dean. "No way that should've happened. He's the smartest guy I know."_ _

__Dean fought the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Seems to me his little brother's the smart one," he said._ _

__Young-Sam tipped his face up, eyes narrowed. "I never told you my brother was older."_ _

__Dean shut his mouth against the lie on the tip of his tongue and quickly considered his options. It was past time for the truth to come out. The gig would be up soon anyway, since it was becoming pretty clear that they would need help with this situation, and to get that help they would need to drive back to the bunker. In the car. Young-Sam wasn't likely to come with him once he saw the car; the kid would probably think Dean had stolen it, maybe even killed for it, and Dean wasn't in the mood to chase the kid down once he started running._ _

__It was definitely time for the truth._ _

__"Yeah, about that," Dean said, putting on his sternest face again. "You've probably figured out how you got here, am I right?"_ _

__Young-Sam's confused frown made Dean's gut clench. Maybe this wouldn't be so easy after all._ _

__"That skin-walker's spell," young-Sam suggested, and Dean nodded._ _

__"That's what I'm thinking," he agreed. "Same thing that took my brother, brought you here."_ _

__"But it's a time-travel spell," young-Sam said, his frown deepening as he worked the problem._ _

__"That's right."_ _

__"So you think I traveled through time?" young-Sam raised his eyes to Dean. "Like your brother?"_ _

__"I'm pretty sure that's what happened, all right," Dean agreed. "Pretty sure you traveled forward in time, as a matter of fact. Into the future."_ _

__Young-Sam's eyes widened, and suddenly he looked much younger than his twelve or thirteen years._ _

__"No way!" he breathed. "How do you know? What year is it?"_ _

__Dean dug deep into the front pocket of his jeans, pulled out a quarter and handed it to young-Sam. The kid held it up to the firelight so he could read the date and sucked in another breath._ _

__"Two-thousand-nine? Really?"_ _

__"Later, actually," Dean shrugged. "Try two-thousand-seventeen."_ _

__"No way!"_ _

__Dean could see the moment the light went on in young-Sam's brain, the moment he did the math and figured out why there was something familiar about Dean, why he trusted the older man more than he should._ _

__And Dean would be talking to him about that, that's for damn sure._ _

__"I – I don't think you told me your name," young-Sam said, turning his sweet, hopeful little face up to Dean with a look of sheer trepidation, like he didn't really want to hear what Dean was about to say._ _

__Dean decided there wasn't really a way to sugarcoat it, so he didn't._ _

__"My name is Dean Winchester. I'm your brother. A lot older than the one you're used to, but there it is."_ _

__For a moment, young-Sam looked like was going to cry. He blinked as he stared at Dean, his lips trembling a little._ _

__"No way," he said finally. "You – you're _old._ You're Dad's age, My – my brother's eighteen and he could kick your ass."_ _

__Dean couldn't help the proud smirk that tugged at his lips. He'd forgotten how adorable Sam could be at this age._ _

__"Maybe he could," Dean agreed. "But I'm him – just older and better-looking." He winked, and young-Sam blushed to the roots of his hair, which was so adorable Dean almost felt guilty for making him so uncomfortable._ _

__Almost._ _

__Then young-Sam frowned, clenching his jaw and narrowing his eyes._ _

__"How do I know you're not a – a shapeshifter?" he suggested. "Or some kind of monster that can read minds? Maybe you're just -- just another skin-walker trying to trick me."_ _

__"Good," Dean praised. "Good, good. You're right to be suspicious. Okay, look here." He pulled a silver knife and a vial of holy water from his pockets, moving slowly so as not to startle the kid._ _

__Young-Sam watched with narrowed eyes as Dean ran the tests on himself and waited for the look of suspicion to fade before he wrapped the wound on his arm._ _

__"Huh? Okay? Are we good?" Dean said, wincing a little at the pain. "Good. Now, it'll be light soon, and we need to bury what's left of these bodies, but I need your help. I've got shovels in the car, but I'm gonna have to ask you to trust me from here on out, you got me? I don't wanna have to worry that you might take off on me."_ _

__Young-Sam swallowed, eyes wide and frightened again as he let the truth sink in, as he realized how far from home he was._ _

__"After we finish here, I need you to help me figure out how to reverse that spell, 'cause I'm missing my brother, and you're not supposed to be here," Dean went on, recognizing the signs of an imminent panic attack and determined to head it off by talking, soothing the kid with his sheer mastery of the situation. "Think you can do that, Geek-boy? Come with me to do a little research? Huh?"_ _

__"You're going to take me to the library?" young-Sam asked._ _

__"Oh, we got something better than the local public library, here in the twenty-first century," Dean smiled. "We got our own library. You're gonna love it."_ _

__Young-Sam followed Dean back to his Baby, and the look of surprise and relief on the kid's face when he saw her was classic. Dean wished he could bottle that look, it was so cute._ _

__"Dad just gave this car to Dean," young-Sam breathed as Dean opened the trunk, reached in to pull out the shovels. "She looks exactly the same."_ _

__Dean heard the accusation in the kid's voice and smiled wryly. "Yeah, well, just about every part has been replaced at least twice now," he said as he handed one of the shovels to young-Sam. "Can't say the same for me, kid. Sorry. Aging's a bitch."_ _

__"Where's Dad?" young-Sam asked as they traipsed back into the woods._ _

__"Do the math, Sammy," Dean snapped, harsher than he intended. "Dad'd be in his sixties by now."_ _

__"He didn't make it," young-Sam breathed. "When did he – I mean, how did he – "_ _

__"Look, kid, it's probably better you don't know too much about this time, you hear what I'm saying? Let's just focus on getting you back where you belong."_ _

__It took them two more hours to complete the grim task of disposing of the bodies, and by the end of it they were both dirty and exhausted. Young-Sam's face was almost black with smoke and grime, and they both smelled like death, but Dean figured it was good for the kid to do something physical to keep his mind off the craziness of his predicament. Just before they walked back to the car, Dean snapped pictures of the tree with the sigil on it, almost forwarded them to Sam before he remembered himself._ _

__It made Dean wild with frustration to leave the site of his brother's disappearance, but without the older Sam's encyclopedic knowledge of spellwork, there was no way they could reverse the spell that had replaced him with this younger version without some serious research. Dean could only hope that the older Sam was working the problem from his end, back in time._ _

__Dean thought about that as he and young Sam trudged back to the car, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. If Sam had traded places with himself in time, then Dean would remember it, wouldn't he?_ _

__"Can I ask, what was the last thing you remember before you showed up here?"_ _

__They were in the car, driving toward town, young-Sam busy checking out the contents of the glovebox, making funny little gasps as he studied pictures of himself on the fake IDs he found there._ _

__"I'm 6'4" in this time?" he marveled. "Wow. I'm taller than you!"_ _

__"Shut up." Dean grabbed the IDs and shoved them back into the glovebox without taking his eyes off the road. "Leave those alone. They don't belong to you."_ _

__But Dean knew the kid had been checking the dates, confirming to himself that Dean's story was true, and Dean respected that. He'd always admired and relied on Sam's thorough, steady manner, his ability to focus on the details when Dean was feeling overwhelmed by the big picture._ _

__It was part of what made them such a good team._ _

__Dean fought the lump in his throat and the stinging at the back of his eyes as young-Sam stared at him, concern transforming his smooth face into a look of compassion._ _

__"You okay?"_ _

__"Just answer the question," Dean growled, brushing the back of his hand across his eyes. He was just tired, that's all. And hungry. They should probably stop for food soon._ _

__"Uh, okay." Young-Sam squinted into the morning sunlight. "We were in Arizona, and Dad was gone, and I was really pissed at Dean because – at _you_ – I was really pissed at you because you didn't let me come with you and Dad on the werewolf thing in Colorado."_ _

__"Of course we didn't," Dean snapped. "You're like ten years old."_ _

__"I'm almost fourteen!"_ _

__Dean glanced at the kid, frowning. No way this little munchkin was that old. No way, because at fourteen Sam was already hunting, already killing things. And this little guy with his bright eyes and smooth skin was just a baby. Not much more than a toddler._ _

__What had he and Dad been thinking?_ _

__"So – you're from 1997?" Dean wracked his brain for memories of that year, and all he could come up with was the terror when he realized Sam was missing. "When we were living in Flagstaff. When – when you ran away from home for two weeks, on my watch? Seriously, Sammy?"_ _

__Young-Sam frowned. "Two weeks? No, it's just been a couple of days. There's this old off-season amusement park where I found this dog, and we've just been hanging out together. I figured out how to climb up the ferris wheel and the view is amazing! Plus there's all the food we can eat in the vending machines, and nobody's around so we've got the place to ourselves. It's awesome!"_ _

__"You do realize I was sick to death worrying about you, right?" Dean growled. "I thought you were dead! And Dad was gone, so I had to bring in this friend of his to help me find you..."_ _

__Dean had a sudden flashback to the tall hunter who helped him look for Sammy that spring, the man who seemed as big as a mountain, with dimples like canyons and warm slanted eyes..._ _

__Jack. The guy called himself Jack Harper._ _

__Feeling cold water run up his spine, Dean realized he knew that name. It was the name of the lead character in the movie he and Sam had watched last night at the motel. _Oblivion,_ that was it. Terrible post-apocalyptic sci-fi thing starring Tom Cruise._ _

__It was a private joke between them, Tom Cruise being Sam's first crush. It wasn't true, it was just something Dean had teased him about because it seemed so funny, tiny Tom Cruise next to his giant of a little brother._ _

__That movie was released in 2014._ _

___Shit._ _ _

__"I swear I didn't mean to make you worry," young-Sam said, his little face scrunched up with guilt as he shifted uncomfortably on the bench. "I was just so mad at Dad because he wouldn't let me come. And when Dean backs him up it's so unfair! He _knows_ I can handle myself in a fight. I'm so sick of being treated like I can't."_ _

__Young-Sam glanced up and seemed to realize he'd reverted to talking about Dean as if he wasn't sitting right next to him._ _

__"I guess I was pretty mad when I left, but I swear I didn't mean to make you and Dad worry about me. I just needed time to cool off a little, that's all."_ _

__"Tell that to twenty-years-younger-me when he finds you," Dean snapped._ _

__He didn't tell young-Sam that he'd just found his brother, just realized that the man in his memories was _his_ Sam. It was a relief, knowing Sam was safe in the past, but also a little disorienting. Jack had never revealed his true identity, and Dean hadn't questioned him too deeply because he was so desperate to find Sammy. Jack was a hunter who knew things and Dean trusted him, probably more than he should have. But the guy had seemed so familiar. When Jack told Dean that he had worked with John when Sam and Dean were kids, Dean had assumed the feeling of familiarity was because he had memories of Jack being around when he was small._ _

__Never mind the fact that Jack had been the most attractive man Dean had ever met. Never mind that Jack made Dean's stomach flip and his face grow hot and his dick swell up and Dean had just wanted to be near him, whatever it took. Almost as much as he had wanted to find his little brother._ _

__And afterwards, when Sammy was safe, back where he belonged, and Jack was just – gone – well, Dean would be lying if he said he never thought about Jack again. Fact is, the older hunter was the main character in Dean's jerk-off fantasies for years, until he finally forgot all about him._ _

__Until now._ _

__**//**//**_ _

__When they got to the motel, they took turns showering off the smoke and blood and grime, just like they always did. As Dean came out of the steaming bathroom, young-Sam was staring into his laptop screen, lips parted and eyes narrowed, that look of concentration Dean knew better than the back of his own hand firmly planted on the kid's face._ _

__So much for not letting young-Sam find out about the future._ _

__"Gonna go grab us some coffee," Dean mumbled as he pulled fresh jeans on and yanked a clean T-shirt over his head._ _

__Young-Sam barely nodded, not even glancing up from the screen, and Dean rolled his eyes and locked the door behind him as he slipped out. He'd seen a Walmart on the edge of town and figured he could find a change of clothes for the kid there._ _

__By the time Dean got back, young-Sam had showered and changed into one of the T-shirts he'd found in his older-self's duffel. It was huge and hung almost to his knees. When Dean threw the bag with smaller-sized duds at the kid's feet, young-Sam looked relieved._ _

__"Put your clothes in the bag after you change," Dean instructed. "We'll wash them when we get home. I'm not sitting in the car all day with you smelling like a funeral pyre."_ _

__Dean tried not to think about how young-Sam's bony shoulder stuck up out of the huge neck of the T-shirt as he retreated into the bathroom to change. He'd forgotten how self-conscious Sam had been at this age, never dressing in front of Dean anymore like he did when they were younger. He could remember teasing Sam about it because it made the kid blush to high heaven, which reminded Dean what a dick of a big brother he had been in those days._ _

__Of course the air had been crackling between them all the time, and Dean had just been doing what he could to deflect that. The fact that it was easier now, that when Dean looked at this kid he was blessedly free of all the adolescent fucked-up horniness that he couldn't shake in those days, didn't make it better. He'd been a real jerk to the kid, back then. No wonder Sammy ran away._ _

__They stopped at a truck stop diner just outside Manchester, New Hampshire for breakfast. Dean snuck glances at the boy across the table from him, trying to put himself back in that time when his Sam had been this pint-sized pain-in-the-ass, always tagging along, always whining and complaining and mad at him about something._ _

__This boy seemed happier and more care-free than Dean remembered. Now that he'd gotten over his initial fear and suspicion, young Sam seemed far less moody and irritable than the kid in Dean's memories. It was as if, out of his own time and on his own, the kid was naturally easygoing, with a sense of fun and adventure that Dean hadn't noticed back when he had had to worry about his little brother all the time. Away from his family, Sam was a revelation._ _

__"You like being on your own?" Dean asked speculatively as he dug into his plate full of steak and eggs and hash browns._ _

__Young-Sam picked at his own bowl of cereal and fruit and shrugged. "It's all right, I guess."_ _

__"Don't you miss your family?"_ _

__Young-Sam glanced up and Dean was struck by how sensitive and thoughtful the kid was, even at this young age. He seemed to get what Dean was asking without even trying very hard._ _

__"I miss my brother," young-Sam said. "But lately he's been such a dick. Sorry. I know you're him."_ _

__"No, I can see how twenty-years-younger-me could be a dick sometimes," Dean acknowledged. "You wanna talk about it?"_ _

__"Not really," young-Sam shrugged, keeping his eyes down as he pushed his food around his bowl. "I mean, we used to be really close, you know? Like, he was always calling me when he and Dad went on hunts. Sometimes we just talked on the phone. For hours."_ _

__Dean remembered. Whenever they had left Sam in those days, whether by himself or at Bobby's or Pastor Jim's place, Dean had missed him like a severed limb. Especially when they'd left him by himself. That had always made Dean crazy._ _

__"And when Dad wasn't around, he took me with him everywhere," young-Sam went on. "Even on his dates. We did everything together. He wasn't just my brother; he was my best friend."_ _

__"But lately not so much," Dean prompted, and young-Sam looked up, squinting a little against the light in the window behind Dean's head._ _

__"Ever since Dad gave him the car, he's always off with some girl," young-Sam said, his face scrunched up in disgust. "When he comes home he smells like them. It's gross."_ _

__It struck Dean now as it had then that Sam was jealous, and with the benefit of hindsight he understood why Sam had seemed so surly and irritable all the time in those days. It didn't help that eighteen-year-old-Dean had teased the hell out of the kid for it. He wished he could explain to young-Sam exactly why he had needed to spend so much time fucking girls and getting drunk back then. He wished he could explain how eighteen-year-old Dean had seen sex in everything, even and maybe especially his perfect, beautiful little brother. He'd felt like such a pervert for that at the time, and he took it out on Sam in ways that were probably perceived as senselessly cruel by thirteen-year-old Sam. Dean wished now that he could explain that to this kid, but he knew better. He could almost hear his thirty-something brother warning him, "Don't mess with the timeline, Dean."_ _

__He couldn't explain it to young-Sam, but he could damn well help him feel a little better about it._ _

__"You're not a little kid anymore, Sam," Dean said. "Your big brother can see that, even if he still treats you like a baby sometimes."_ _

__Young-Sam looked up in surprise. "My Dean never says stuff like that," he said. "He keeps telling me not to get my panties in a twist and stop being such a girl. It makes me want to punch his lights out!"_ _

__Yeah, Dean could remember that. He remembered how red-faced and angry Sam had gotten sometimes when Dean teased him about his obvious jealousy, what a feeling of power it had given Dean to get such a passionate response from his kid brother. It had flooded him with shame at the same time, of course, but that hadn't stopped him._ _

__"Your big brother can't stand to see you growing up," Dean said honestly. "He figures there'll come a day when you won't need him anymore."_ _

__"Never," young-Sam said fiercely, shaking his head. "If he thinks that, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about."_ _

__"Yeah, well, he was pretty stupid back then," Dean agreed with a grin. "You growing up made him feel like he was losing you. That, and Dad being gone more and more. Your brother wanted to hit something all the time in those days."_ _

__The waitress chose that moment to interrupt them. "More coffee? Some dessert for your boy?"_ _

__"No, we're good," Dean answered. "Just the check."_ _

__He winked at young-Sam, who blushed and looked uncomfortable, and Dean watched the kid's dimples come out in full force as he lowered his head._ _

__"She thinks I'm your son," young-Sam said with a short laugh that Dean almost recognized._ _

__"That's a first, I gotta say," Dean nodded, still grinning. He couldn't stop. This younger version of Sam made him happier than he could remember feeling for a long, long time. Not for the first time, he had a flashback of Sam at this age, of he and Sam hanging out together, just being brothers, and it felt really good._ _

__**//**//**_ _

__"Where are we going?" Sam asked later when they were back in the car, heading west with the sun almost directly overhead._ _

__Dean considered lying, or blind-folding young-Sam so he wouldn't be able to find his way to the bunker in his own timeline, once he went back. He thought about drugging him or getting him shit-faced so he'd sleep through the journey._ _

__Fuck it. The kid was smart and would probably figure it out anyway. They needed the bunker archive to figure out a way to fix things, and once they were there they'd figure out a way to make him forget. Maybe Cas could help._ _

__"Lebanon, Kansas," Dean answered. "The Batcave."_ _

__"There's a library there?"_ _

__"Like nothing you've ever seen," Dean nodded. "You're gonna be in geek-boy heaven, kid. You just wait till you see it."_ _

__"So there's folks there who can help us," young-Sam suggested. "They know about time-travel spells there."_ _

__Dean cast a sidelong glance at the kid and tried to control the smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Nah," he answered. "It's just us, Sammy. We're the experts in this universe." No way the kid needed to know about the British Men of Letters, for God's sake. Definitely not opening _that_ can of worms._ _

__"Just us?" young-Sam sucked in a breath. "What about Bobby?"_ _

__Dean shook his head._ _

__"Pastor Jim?"_ _

__"Everybody's gone, Sam," Dean said, his voice a little gruffer than he intended due to the lump at the back of his throat. "It's just you and me now."_ _

__Which wasn't strictly true, of course, but Dean was damned if he was going to tell this kid that his mother was alive in this timeline, or that their best friend was an angel. Better to keep things on a need-to-know basis, just like always._ _

__At least for now._ _

__**//**//**_ _

__"Hey," Dean said later, yanking the kid out of whatever daydreaming reverie was keeping his attention outside the car window. "Put your seatbelt on."_ _

__"You're not wearing yours," young-Sam commented as he dug around with one hand wedged under the seat-back until he found the long-unused lap belt and strapped it across his hips._ _

__"Doesn't matter," Dean growled. "You ride in my car, you wear it."_ _

__"It's stupid without the shoulder-belt," young-Sam muttered. "You should install shoulder belts if you're really worried about safety."_ _

__"Not worried about safety," Dean snapped. "Just worried about _you."__ _

__That had always been true, of course. Dean had always worried about Sam, even when Dean was a kid himself. But it had been different back then. Dean's sense of time was different when he was young, when he couldn't imagine anything worse than losing Sammy, being separated, his remaining family flying apart._ _

__Now Dean knew there were worse things than being separated, and that knowledge had changed him. If he had it to do over, he would never have allowed Sammy to hunt in the first place._ _

__"I can take care of myself," young-Sam scoffed. "When Dean was my age, Dad took him on hunts all the time."_ _

__"Doesn't make it right," Dean grumbled, then reached over and grabbed the gun young-Sam had just found in the glovebox. "Give me that."_ _

__"Is that mine?" young-Sam asked, awed._ _

__"No!" Dean barked. "I mean yes. But no. It's future-yours, not _1997-yours,_ so leave it alone."_ _

__"What's this?" young-Sam asked as he pulled out Sam's sleek black smartphone. "Is this a Gameboy?"_ _

__"A what?" Dean glanced over as young-Sam figured out how to turn on the phone._ _

__"Whoa! This is cool! Where are the controls? How does it work?" young-Sam turned the phone over and his eyes got wide as he inadvertently touched the screen, which lit up with Sam's signature lock-screen._ _

__"That's Sam's phone." Dean rolled his eyes. "It's got all his geeky stuff on it, so you better leave it alone. He gets pissed when I so much as touch it, so I don't even want to think about how he'll react when he finds out you've been messing with it."_ _

__"This is a phone?" young-Sam turned wide eyes on Dean and Dean felt a smile tug on the corners of his mouth._ _

__"Yeah," he nodded. "There's probably some games on it, if you can find them. Music, too. Sam's earbuds are in there somewhere. He puts them in when he gets sick of Seger and Zep. Oh man, he is gonna be so pissed when he gets back."_ _

__Somehow the thought of older-Sam returning from the past to find his stuff had been played with by his thirteen-year-old self really tickled Dean's funny bone. He couldn't stop grinning as young-Sam fumbled around in the glovebox until he found the earbuds, staring at them with a frown for all of two seconds until he understood how they worked._ _

__By the time they stopped to eat, young-Sam had figured out Google Maps, Wikipedia, and Pokemon Go, and was deep into Sam's music library of '90's grunge and contemporary alt-rock. He'd also scrolled through several newsfeeds and updated himself on life in the twenty-first century, which Dean couldn't really blame him for. He was Sam, after all._ _

__He'd also hacked into Sam's email and social media accounts, which was a little weird._ _

__"So Future-me is into serial killers and histories of religious reformations, huh?" young-Sam said as they pulled into the diner parking lot. "And who's Jody?"_ _

__"None of your business," Dean snapped, reaching for the phone. "Give me that."_ _

__He scrolled through Sam's accounts, unable to resist a quick peek. Sam always made such a big deal out of his privacy. He had programmed all his accounts with little messages that popped up whenever Dean tried to hack his phone, every one directed at his "prying big brother" who should keep his nose out of Sam's stuff._ _

__"How did you do that?" Dean asked, impressed despite himself that this kid could so easily break through Sam's defenses._ _

__"I'm him," young-Sam shrugged. "I know how he thinks."_ _

__Dean raised an eyebrow, pocketing Sam's cell phone as he climbed out of the car to lead the way into the diner. The kid might be smart, but he was still Dean's little brother._ _

__**//**//**_ _

__"So this is the future," young-Sam noted a few minutes later as he gazed around the interior of Stella's Diner with a pinched look that Dean knew too well. The kid was unhappy._ _

__"Well, this place probably didn't exist twenty years ago." Dean shrugged, glancing around at the weary, downtrodden clientele squeezed into booths and onto bar-stools around the room._ _

__"Bet it did," young-Sam muttered, pretending to study his menu._ _

__"What's the matter, kid?" Dean frowned. "Future not shiny enough for you? Feelin' let down because it's not all robots and flying cars?"_ _

__"More like losers and broken-down jalopies." young-Sam rolled his eyes. "This place looks exactly like the diner we ate in last week."_ _

__"Well, it's not, okay?" Dean frowned, glancing up as a uniformed waitress approached their table. "Stella here, for example. She's not a day over twenty-nine. Am I right?"_ _

__The waitress, who couldn't be a day under fifty, flashed a dimpled smile at Dean as she raised her notepad to take their order._ _

__"The name's Penny, honey," she winked. "And I get off at nine, in case you're interested."_ _

__Dean shot a smirking glance at young-Sam which would have prompted an eye-roll from his older little brother. Young-Sam just stared at his menu, ignoring the entire exchange, as if Dean and his adult behavior was entirely uninteresting to the kid._ _

__Which, Dean considered, deflating a little as he gave Penny his order, it probably was._ _


	2. Sailing Over a Cardboard Sea

When they stopped just outside Cleveland for the night, it was because Dean was starting to fall asleep at the wheel. Young-Sam had offered to drive more than once, but Dean wouldn't let him. It wasn't just the fact that the kid was so short and looked so young that it wasn't worth the risk of getting pulled over; Sam had known how to drive and had done so in an emergency from the time he was about nine years old. There were times Dean could remember the kid driving him and John to the hospital or back to the motel after a hunt, both older Winchesters out of commission and passed out from blood loss and pain.

No, it wasn't because Dean didn't think the kid could do it. And it wasn't because he was being overly protective of his Baby, either. Even now, Dean let Sam drive if he couldn't, although he didn't like to. No, the reason Dean didn't want this kid to drive had more to do with his pride and stubbornness than anything else. Children should not drive cars, and just because Dad and Dean had let Sam drive when they were incapacitated didn't make it right.

If anything, the age difference now made Dean more acutely aware of how wrong it had been back then. At the time, Dean had tried to do whatever he could to make sure Sam's childhood was as normal as possible, given the life they lived then. But now, looking back, Dean could see just how badly he had failed. Sam never should have been helping with hunts so young, even if all he did was wait in the back seat of the car while Dean and his dad did the dirty work. This little scrap of a kid shouldn't have been anywhere near those monsters, and it made Dean cringe to remember the way he had boasted to Sam about what a superhero their dad was, how awesome it was to help him bring down evil.

Dean had been selling the life to Sam at that age like it was all some kind of amusement park adventure ride, like being in that kind of danger was the ultimate thrill, consequences be damned. Of course, they were trained. Their dad expected them to be prepared, and they sparred and target-practiced until their muscles ached and their fingers blistered.

But they shouldn't have been doing it in the first place, or at least Sam shouldn't have. That was obvious to Dean now as he glanced at the munchkin in the passenger seat, this skinny slip-of-a-kid whose feet barely reached the footwell when he sat back on the bench.

"Dean!"

Dean jerked awake as the car veered dangerously over the centerline, almost into the guardrail. He had her under control almost instantly, brushing young-Sam's hand aside as the kid reached for the wheel...

Jesus. Sammy's hand was tiny, fine-boned and delicate like a bird's. How the hell did he ever learn to handle that .45 of his?

Why did he ever have to?

"When's the last time you got some sleep?" young-Sam asked as Dean shook the cobwebs out of his head and tried to focus on the road.

"I don't know," Dean muttered. "Yesterday, maybe."

"I really think you should let me drive," young-Sam said. "It's dark. Nobody will see."

"No," Dean shook his head. "No way." _You're just a kid. None of this should be happening to you._ "Okay, you know what? Take a look at that phone of Sam's. In the glovebox. Find us a cheap motel nearby where we can catch a couple hours' sleep."

"Or we could just pull over at a rest area and sleep in the car," young-Sam shrugged. "You still keep blankets in the trunk?"

"Motel," Dean insisted. The truth was, sleeping in the car had lost its appeal years ago, about the time they moved into the bunker. Having his own room with his own bed to stretch out in every night had spoiled him, although he wasn't about to tell young-Sam that.

Within the hour they'd checked into the Locust Grove Motel in Madison. After salting the windows and door, young-Sam flipped on the TV while Dean was in the bathroom. He was propped up on one of the beds when Dean emerged, deep into a documentary about killer whales.

"Okay, short stuff, time for bed," Dean announced as he grabbed the remote and switched off the TV.

"Hey! I was watching that!" young-Sam protested, sounding almost like a normal thirteen-year-old for a moment, which made Dean's heart clench.

"Yeah, well, we need to get up early to hit the road. We're not here on vacation."

Although really, the more Dean thought about it, the more he wondered why they couldn't take a little more time on this road trip? Why were they in such a hurry to get back to the bunker? Sure, it was dangerous traveling with a kid, and Dean really wished he had his mountain-sized brother at his side to back him up against those dangers. But this boy was facing a lifetime of horrors he couldn't even imagine right now, and part of Dean just wanted to keep him here where he could be safe, or at least safer. Part of Dean wished he could give Sam back a little of his childhood, just let him be the kid he never was.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Dean felt his heart clench tighter in his chest. Keeping this little pint-sized brother here was impossible, of course, since leaving grown-up Sam in the past wasn't an option. But the need to protect the kid, to prevent things unfolding as they had for the older Sam, was almost overwhelming. It occurred to Dean that this whole thing might be a kind of happy accident. It was like getting a second chance, having the opportunity to fix things. As an adult, Dean could be a much better parent to young-Sam than he'd been able to be the first time around. Without Azazel and the archangels watching over him, young-Sam could grow up almost normally. He could go to school, meet a nice girl, have the normal life Dean had always wanted for him, the life that Sam had once wanted for himself.

"Did you brush your teeth?" Dean couldn't help asking as young-Sam came out of the bathroom, barefoot and wearing one of older-Sam's T-shirts to sleep in.

The kid rolled his eyes and muttered, "Yes, sir," as he climbed into his bed, pulling the covers up to his chin as he snuggled down with his back to Dean.

"Don't call me that," Dean growled, although without much heat. The truth was, this younger version of Dean's brother wasn't much like the kid Dean remembered. That Sam had been moody and uncooperative, snapping at Dean's slightest suggestion. Sam hated being bossed around, and he especially hated being bossed around by Dean.

But this Sam seemed to take Dean's authority for granted. He seemed far more accepting of Dean's lead than Dean remembered. It was as if older-Dean translated easily into father-figure. Brother-Dean was a kid barely eighteen years old, and although Sam looked up to him, he didn't have the same expectations that he had for their father. Apparently in young-Sam's mind, older-Dean reminded him more of their dad than his brother. Young-Sam hadn't yet reached that age when he began rebelling in earnest, that age when he began to understand how their father's absence had affected everything, how it had made their childhood so much more desperate and dangerous than it should have been. Young-Sam was still young enough to trust their dad, even if brother-Dean had already replaced him as Sam's primary parent.

Dean checked the salt lines one more time before he slipped into his own bed and switched out the light, his head filled with thoughts of saving this kid from his own future.

"G'night, Sam," he murmured, eyeing the bundle of blankets with something that almost felt like a lump in his throat.

When the kid shifted under the blankets and mumbled, "G'night," Dean felt hot tears sting his eyes.

He couldn't let this innocent kid end up as Lucifer's meatsuit. No fuckin' way.

**//**//**

"What do you say we do a little sightseeing?" Dean suggested over breakfast the next morning.

"Seriously?" young-Sam gaped. "I thought we were in a rush to get to Kansas."

"Yeah." Dean gave a small shrug. "But I think we can take a couple of hours out of our drive to look at a couple of things."

"Like what?"

Dean smiled, delighted to be sparking the kid's natural curiosity.

"Oh, you'll see," he said mysteriously.

"The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?" young-Sam stared out the car window an hour later as they pulled off the interstate, taking the exit for the museum. "Seriously?"

"Why not?" Dean shrugged. "We've driven through Cleveland a million times and never stopped here."

"That's because it's lame," young-Sam complained. "My brother says 'museums are for dead things.'"

"Your brother's an idiot," Dean said. "This place is awesome."

"It's stupid," young-Sam said. "They didn't even induct Zeppelin until 1995."

"Well, at least they did it once they figured out their mistake," Dean said, then added, "This year, they're inducting Pearl Jam."

"No way!" young-Sam's look of shock was almost funny, and Dean's face split open in a grin he couldn't control if he wanted to.

"Uh-huh," he nodded. "Thought you'd like that. I remember how much you liked all that emo crap when you were a teenager."

Dean could feel young-Sam's eyes on him, studying him. "You're really him," young-Sam said finally. "My brother."

"Thought we already established that," Dean said, frowning.

"Yeah, I know. It's just that you're so old. I keep forgetting."

"Thanks," Dean growled. "And I almost forgot what a little shit you could be."

Young-Sam flushed and lowered his eyes, and Dean felt like an idiot. The kid really didn't think of Dean as his brother, the way Dean did when he looked at young-Sam. It was easy for Dean to keep two versions of Sam in his head at the same time; this kid was familiar, the years easily slipping away whenever Dean looked at him, reminding him of the way he'd treated Sam back then, all the teasing and pranking that had felt normal when they were both kids. But for young-Sam, it was like Dean and young-Sam's brother were two different people.

"Never mind," Dean reached over and ruffled the kid's hair. "We're here. Let's go check it out."

After forking over fifteen dollars to park, Dean insisted that young-Sam pretend to be twelve so he could get in for half price. Young-Sam scowled and Dean ruffled his hair again, hooking his arm around the kid's neck to pull him in for a headlock and a noogie, the sense-memory so strong Dean almost felt seventeen again. Young-Sam relented too easily, though, and Dean quickly remembered himself and let the kid go with a little push, ignoring the niggling sense of wrongness at the back of his brain.

Young-Sam backed away awkwardly, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and hunching his shoulders in a defensive posture Dean knew too well. He refused to meet Dean's eyes, and the feeling of wrongness grew stronger. There didn't seem to be anything Dean could do to make this kid totally accept him as his big brother. Young-Sam couldn't seem to reconcile the teenager he knew with the grown man in front of him, a grown man who was obviously a complete stranger to him, however familiar he might be.

**//**//**

It wasn't until they were back on the road later that Dean understood better why that might be.

"So you and me, in this time, we still hunt," young-Sam asked after almost an hour of silence. 

Not that it was quiet in the car; Dean had been blasting Led Zeppelin ever since leaving the museum, just on principle. It really did suck that it took the museum almost ten years before inducting them.

"Yeah," Dean nodded. When young-Sam didn't say anything more, just chewed on his bottom lip and stared out into the rainy afternoon, Dean reached over and turned down the volume on "The Battle of Evermore," as hard as that was to do. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," young-Sam said with a shrug. "I'm just -- I thought maybe things would be different by now."

"Things _are_ different," Dean said. "You're taller." He threw a grin at young-Sam, who grimaced and shook his head.

"No, I mean I expected – I _hoped_ the future would be better," he said. "I was thinking maybe me and Dean wouldn't have to keep doing what Dad did. Maybe we could leave hunting and do something else, you know? Maybe we could have a better life."

"Yeah, well, the thing is, there is no other life for us," Dean said. "Better or not, this is it."

And soon as he said it, Dean knew it was true. As if there had ever been any doubt. As if he could change that by keeping this kid here in the future, protecting him from all the evil that was headed his way.

Dean knew better. Even if he did manage to keep young-Sam right here next to him for the rest of his life, that didn't change what they were. Once a Winchester, always a Winchester. Evil followed them around like a rabid pit-bull, unshakeable and unavoidable. Putting it down was always going to be their responsibility, in whatever time they lived.

"Believe me, we've tried," he said.

"Really?" Young-Sam's eyes were wide, Dean could tell without even looking, could feel young-Sam's eager curiosity boring into him as Dean stared straight ahead at the road.

"Yeah, really," Dean nodded. "Temporary, every time. Being out, all the way out, just never worked very well."

Young-Sam frowned. "Maybe you didn't try hard enough," he suggested. 

"Oh, we tried pretty damn hard," Dean said again. "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but you went to college. I lived with an old girlfriend and her son for a year. It didn't stick."

Dean could feel young-Sam staring at him, taking in what Dean had just told him, processing.

"I'm going to college?" young-Sam gaped. "Without Dean? Dean doesn't come with me?"

"Nope," Dean said, trying to mask his bitterness. Even after all these years, the memory of that separation still hurt like hell. Sam left. There wasn't any other way to describe it.

"But – so that's why it didn't work, then," young-Sam said. "We need to stick together. Dean always says it's me and him against the world. We're better together."

Dean smiled grimly, shaking his head. "It ain't that easy, kid," he said. "Sometimes you need space. Sometimes, you go off on your own, and I'm not very good at letting you go."

Young-Sam's look of confusion was almost comical, and Dean had to struggle to keep from chuckling. 

"I would never leave Dean!" young-Sam protested fiercely, and Dean had to hand it to him; he sounded so sincere it almost broke Dean's heart. "I'd never do that. I can't imagine ever, ever doing that."

Then Dean realized why he had been so overcome by the need to keep this kid here with him, where Dean could keep him relatively safe. Young-Sam hadn't yet grown up enough to see himself separate from Dean. The idea of keeping young-Sam safe masked the underlying reality: kids grow up. Even this younger version of Dean's little brother would one day grow up and leave home, leave Dean. Young-Sam might not understand it now, might be horrified by the idea, but it would happen. It _had_ happened, and Dean couldn't stop it from happening again when this kid figured out he didn't need Dean any more. Someday young-Sam would decide he didn't want some strange old man telling him what to do, and he would strike out on his own, as he was meant to do, leaving Dean broken and alone. Again.

Only this time, there wouldn't be a yellow-eyed demon burning Sam's girlfriend on the ceiling of their apartment, driving Sam and Dean together again on a shared quest for vengeance. There wouldn't be angels setting them up for an apocalypse. There wouldn't be a demonic deal that sent Dean to Hell and Sam into the Cage with Lucifer.

This time, there would be young-Sam making his way in the world, probably going to law school and getting married, having kids, maybe grandkids one day. There would be Dean growing old alone. And there would be Dean's brother stranded in the past, with a younger version of Dean, with enough knowledge of younger-Dean's future to make sure he didn't repeat it.

Dean's heart clenched for the fiftieth time in twenty-four hours at the thought of his younger self never finding his little brother. Would Jack-Sam stay with him? Would he tell younger-Dean the truth eventually? Would younger-Dean be able to forgive him for being part of what had happened to his baby brother?

Probably not, Dean realized with a shock. If younger-Dean thought Jack had done something to Sammy, he wouldn't hesitate. He would slit the man's throat, in his sleep if he didn't think he could get the jump on him any other way.

Dean shivered, subconsciously haunted by the ghost of older-Sam, who might have already died in the past without his brother there to explain things to him, with only that vengeful younger version of Dean for company as he bled out.

Yet Dean felt certain that Sam, _his_ Sam, the one younger-Dean knew as Jack, would never let that happen. Jack-Sam would hold onto his secret, never letting younger-Dean know who he was, probably shadowing younger-Dean from a distance for the rest of his life to be sure he didn't kill himself once he realized his little brother was never coming back.

Worse, Jack-Sam would understand why the older Dean had done it, why he'd kept young-Sam with him. Jack-Sam would get it, and he'd deal with it, in his stoic, lonely way. He would never let younger-Dean become a . He would watch over the young man as he hunted, abandoned by his mother, his father, and his little brother. Jack-Sam would make sure younger-Dean didn't get killed on a job. He would follow younger-Dean into the field every single time, watchful and protective, stepping in whenever he thought he could without being noticed, then stepping back again to let younger-Dean think he was still working alone.

And whenever younger-Dean got injured on a hunt, Jack-Sam would be there to make sure he got better, to carry him to the Emergency Room if he had to, or swoop in and lop heads off to prevent younger-Dean from getting backed into a corner in the first place.

Jack-Sam would have younger-Dean's back as long as he could, as long as he was able, and younger-Dean would never know.

But younger-Dean would know. He might not get it at first, why those moments on a hunt when he was sure his number was up just didn't happen, why he woke up in a hospital bed instead, some doctor or nurse explaining that he'd been brought in by an FBI agent or a police officer or EMT guy whose name was Bobby or Charlie or Joe Dee.

It would seem like some fuckin' guardian angel was covering his every move, having his back and watching over him to be sure he didn't get himself killed.

Just like his little brother would have done if he was still around.

 _And round and round and round we go,_ Dean thought as he stared out the windshield at the pounding rain, the darkness so complete it was starting to mess with his head, make him think he could see something out there, beyond the watery twin beams of light cast by the headlights. In his half-stunned, even half-asleep state, "Black Dog" blasting on the cassette deck, Dean thought he saw a man in a long, dark coat, standing in the rain by the side of the road, waiting for him.

And there he was. The man had long grey hair that whipped around his face in the rain, making him look older than his fifty-some years, ghostly and skeletal, as though he hadn't had a good meal in a long while. As the headlights swept the man's tall, lean frame, Dean caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were hollow and dark with sorrow, staring at Dean without fear as the car approached, as if he had been waiting for Dean like an old friend, as if he had been looking forward to the moment of impact for years.

"Jesus fuck!"

Dean slammed on the brakes and the car skidded on the wet road as Dean struggled to keep control, to prevent the car from crashing into the guardrail or going over the edge of the highway and into the ditch beyond.

Of course the man disappeared. He probably hadn't even been there in the first place, and all Dean was left with was the echo of a voice in his head, cracked and broken with age and sorrow, but familiar nonetheless.

_Come back to me._

"Dean?"

Young-Sam's troubled face was turned up to him, concern creasing his smooth brow as Dean wrestled the car back onto the road. It had been a close call, but nothing Dean couldn't handle. They were lucky there were no other cars on the road at this time of night, though.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Dean lied, his voice a little shakier than he intended. He cleared his throat. "Just thought I saw something is all."

But the voice was Sam's, no mistaking that, no mistaking the words Dean still heard in his head as if the older version of his brother were sitting right there next to him.

_Come back to me._

Fuck.

**//**//**

"Okay, that's it," Dean announced as he pulled off the road into the parking lot of the Rodeway Inn in Des Moines. "Time for a little shut-eye."

He didn't want to stop, but Dean's head was doing strange things to him, making him hear voices out of some bad '80s time-travel melodrama, haunting him with images of his brother as an old man. That stupid line from _Somewhere in Time_ wasn't even accurate, since Sam was the one who had time-traveled, not Dean. He was beginning to wonder if he was losing his mind, and it was not a feeling he enjoyed. At all. He needed to forget this was happening for a while. He needed to stop obsessing over all the endless possibilities, all of the maybes and might-bes and could-bes. He needed temporary oblivion.

Luckily, the motel was right next door to a restaurant with a bar. After tucking young-Sam into bed, or at least leaving him with the TV remote and some vending-machine snacks, Dean hit Montana Mike's like there was no tomorrow. Which, if he thought about it hard enough, there might not be. After all, if he succeeded in messing with the timeline sufficiently, wasn't there at least a fifty-fifty chance that one of the apocalypses the Winchesters had averted might not get stopped after all?

 _Shut up!_ he scolded himself fiercely, then nearly jumped out of his skin when a voice chuckled low and soft behind him.

"I hope you weren't talking to me," the voice said. "Mind if I join you?"

Dean didn't have to turn to know he'd see the old man from the highway sliding onto the barstool next to him. He could feel cold air coming off the man like a breeze, and he instinctively reached for the saltshaker on the counter next to him.

"I'm not a ghost, Dean," the old man said. "I'm more like a psychic echo."

"Are you saying I made you up?" Dean growled, controlling his panic enough to turn and face the old man. Apparition. Whatever-the-fuck.

"Not exactly." The man shook his head, his long, shaggy hair swinging along his scruffy jaw. His beard was almost completely grey, Dean noted, along with his hair, and his skin was pale; Dean could see the blue in the veins of his wrists as the man folded his large hands on the bar in front of him. Sam's hands, the fingers long and tapered, still beautiful. "I'm real, but only you can see me. I'm a possible future, if you go down the path you're considering."

"You're _not_ real. I made you up," Dean declared, shivering as the cold enveloped him. "Or else I'm losing my mind."

He tossed back his whiskey and signaled the bartender for another. She smiled grimly as she filled Dean's glass, obviously not noticing the old man sitting next to him.

"Tough night?" she asked, sympathetic but noncommittal. She had tattoos up one arm and a small, dainty ring in her left nostril.

"You have no idea," Dean said as he tossed back his drink and set the glass down for another refill. "Better leave the bottle."

"Dean," the old man murmured as the bartender moved on down the bar to other customers, leaving the bottle on the bar.

"You shut up." Dean raised his index finger and waved it at the old man. "I did not ask to be visited by the Ghost of Future Past."

"Dean, you know you can't keep younger-me here." The old man got right to the point, as if Dean hadn't just made a literary reference that would have made _his_ Sam proud. "You have to send him home."

"He _is_ home," Dean growled. _"I'm_ his home."

"No, you're not." The old man shook his head. "He needs to go back to his brother. You can't keep him here."

"Watch me," Dean snapped, tossing back another shot.

"I need to come home, Dean," the old man sighed. "I – I need you."

"That's not what you said when you left for Stanford," Dean growled, turning to face the old man now that he had the courage of Jack Daniels in his veins. "You said, and I quote, 'I don't need you anymore, Dean. I don't need you bossing me around and telling me what to do.'"

"Well, I didn't," future-Sam said. "I wasn't a kid anymore, but you kept treating me like one. I needed you to see that, but you were all caught up in your fantasy of keeping the family together no matter what. You were never going to let me grow up, Dean, and I had to. I _had_ to."

"You should have been a lawyer, Sam. You should have had a wife and kids and a house in the suburbs. You weren't supposed to end up some lonely old man hanging out in bars slowly drinking himself to death."

"Like you," future-Sam noted. "I wasn't supposed to end up like you."

"No!" Dean didn't even care if the bartender was looking at him funny, trying to decide if she should cut him off. "No, you weren't!"

"Well, that's too bad, Dean, because that's just the way it is!" future-Sam snapped. "And after everything we've been through, that's how it's supposed to be. You know it, and I know it, and that kid watching TV in that motel room knows it. We're supposed to be together, Dean. Partners. Fighting the good fight, for as long as we can, as equals. Two guys who've been to Hell and back, who understand each other better than anyone else ever can. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's the only way any of it makes sense."

"The only way it makes sense is if it didn't happen in the first place," Dean insisted. "I've got a chance to make it up to that kid, to make it up to older-him for all the ways I failed him the first time."

"You didn't fail me, Dean," future-Sam said softly.

"The hell I didn't, Sam! You weren't supposed to die at Cold Oak. I was supposed to look out for you, make sure that didn't happen in the first place."

"You couldn't have stopped that," future-Sam said. "The angels had it all rigged from the start."

"Not this time," Dean said. "This time it'll be different, and that's all that matters."

"Dean, are you listening to yourself? You can't change the past. If you don't send that kid back where he belongs, you won't be the guy that saved him. You'll be the guy who couldn't find his little brother when he was a kid. You'll be the bitter alcoholic who lost his thirteen-year-old brother twenty years ago and never forgave himself."

"Doesn't matter," Dean insisted. "If this kid grows up without angels breathing down his neck and a two-hundred-year sentence in Hell waiting for him, none of the rest of it matters."

"It matters to _me!"_ future-Sam huffed angrily. "You ever think about that? Huh? You ever think of the fact that if you don't send that kid back to the past, you're condemning me to a lifetime without you?"

"It's better that way," Dean mumbled into his shot glass.

"Better for who? Did it ever occur to you that little-me might not want to stay here? You're not his brother. He barely knows you."

"He'll adjust!" Dean snapped.

"If I got lost in the future when I was thirteen, I'd want to go home," future-Sam went on, as if he hadn't heard Dean. "I wouldn't want to stay there with some grumpy old geezer just because he says he's my brother." He didn't say, _I'd want to get home to my younger, hotter brother,_ but Dean heard it anyway.

"He doesn't get a choice," Dean said, then shot a guilty glance at future-Sam.

"He gets _all_ the choices, Dean, and you know it," future-Sam reminded him, quoting a young woman they both knew and cared for, whose recent predicament had been nearly as desperate as this one.

Dean felt the hair on the back of his neck rise up.

"He doesn't know what's good for him," Dean insisted. "He doesn't have all the information."

"Are you kidding me? He's me, isn't he? And he's been here almost two days. You think he hasn't figured everything out by now? Think about it. Everything there is to know about us is online, Dean. The _Supernatural_ novels, including all the unpublished parts. What do you think he's doing right now while you're here getting smashed?"

Dean had to admit, he hadn't thought of that.

"He's figuring out how to fix things. How to get back to his brother. Because that's what he does," future-Sam said. "That's what he _always_ does."

Dean shook his head. "He leaves," he said, knowing how pathetic he sounded but not caring anymore, too deep in Jack. "That's what he's good at. _That's_ what he does. He _leaves._ "

"And he comes back," future-Sam said softly, tiredly, like he'd said it a thousand times. "He always comes back."

"No." Dean shook his head. He was dizzy, which is how he knew he was finally getting drunk. "Not this time."

He pulled himself off the barstool with effort, stopping long enough to drop bills on the bar before heading toward the exit. He knew future-Sam was following him because he could feel the cold air at his back, but he didn't speak again. When Dean got to the motel room he fumbled with the key as a body pressed up behind him, a voice blew cold whispers past his ear.

"Don't do this, Dean. Don't leave me there. It's not what I want. You have to fix this so I can come home. I'll go insane without you. Think about what you're doing and help me fix this!"

"I _am_ fixing it," Dean growled as he shoved the key into the lock. As he pushed the door open and stepped over the salt line he felt the cold air behind him fall away. The old man couldn't follow him into the room.

Dean closed the door behind him, then quickly re-salted the door and windows. He was breathing hard, as if he'd been running, and his heart beat too fast in his chest.

The boy was sitting up in the bed furthest from the door, watching TV, just like he was when Dean left him an hour ago. Not researching, not finding out everything there was to know about what had happened in this timeline.

The old man was wrong.

"Hey," Dean nodded at the kid as he headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed. "Ten more minutes, okay? We've got another day's drive tomorrow."

"Yes, sir," young-Sam said, his voice still young and high, not yet changed into the rough, rich tenor he would have one day.

The laptop lay on the dresser next to the bathroom door, and Dean pressed his hand on it as he passed it, just to prove his point.

The case was warm.

**//**//**

Young-Sam was quiet and distant the next morning. He packed his bag and got in the car without looking at Dean, broadcasting a sullenness that was a stark contrast to his previous wide-eyed curiosity. Dean figured he was processing his research from the night before, so Dean didn't pry. Learning you were destined to become Lucifer's vessel and bring on the apocalypse wasn't something most kids would take lightly, and this was Sam, who was obsessive about everything by nature.

"It's not gonna happen," Dean said when they were facing each other over bacon and eggs and oatmeal at Vivian's Diner an hour later.

"What?" young-Sam seemed guarded, like he'd gone back to not trusting Dean again.

"Lucifer, the apocalypse, all that stuff you read about last night," Dean said. "It's not going to happen."

Young-Sam's jaw clenched and he stared down into his oatmeal as if it held the secrets of the universe. "I don't know what you're talking about," he mumbled without looking up.

"Don't lie to me, Sam," Dean snapped. "I know what you were really doing while you pretended to watch TV last night. I'm your brother, remember? I know you."

Young-Sam lifted frightened eyes, making Dean flinch. "So it's true?" he asked. "It all happened like it says in those _Supernatural_ stories? I'm being watched by demons so I can grow up to be possessed by the devil? Dean goes – " Young-Sam swallowed hard, his next words a pinched whisper. "Dean goes to Hell?"

It was Dean's turn to clench his jaw. "Yeah, kid, I'm sorry," he said, fighting the lump in his throat. "That's how it happened. Sorry you had to find out like that."

"So – " Young-Sam blinked rapidly, and Dean could see a film of tears over his hazel eyes. "So you were just planning to wipe my memories before you sent me back? So Dean and I couldn't do anything to stop it?"

"Sam." Dean took a deep breath, fighting back the tears threatening to pour forth from his own eyes at the sight of the kid's obvious distress.

"Or maybe you were just hoping I wouldn't find out, is that it? Is that what you thought? You could just distract me with sight-seeing and ice cream and I wouldn't figure out how to Google our names?"

Young-Sam's last words came out on a choked sob as he gave up the fight with his own emotions and his tears spilled forth.

Naturally, the waitress took that moment to show up to refill Dean's coffee.

"Aw honey, is my oatmeal that bad?" she crooned in a motherly way that immediately put Dean on edge.

"Nah, it's just his time of the month," Dean quipped automatically before realizing how inappropriate the jibe would sound to a stranger.

The waitress frowned, her concern suddenly transforming into something darker.

"Are you all right, son?" she asked young-Sam. "Is this man bothering you?"

"What? No." Young-Sam shook his head, wiping at his face with the palms of his hands. "He's my brother. It's fine."

"Your brother, huh? Seems a little old," the waitress said dubiously.

"We had different mothers," Dean snarked, willing her to leave them alone with his most threatening glare, which she did after another suspicious glance. Without re-filling his coffee cup, Dean noted as he handed young-Sam a couple of paper napkins from the dispenser. Oh well. It was definitely time to get going anyway.

"Come on, Sammy," he said as he pulled out some bills to leave on the table. "Time to go."


	3. But It Wouldn't Be Make-Believe

In the car, young-Sam was silent and sullen, but at least he'd stopped crying. The day was bright and sunny after last night's rain; a brisk breeze moved fluffy white clouds overhead, their shadows flitting swiftly across the newly-green fields. The air smelled fresh and clean, and Dean drove one-handed, letting his right arm lie along the back of the bench, fingers tapping out the rhythm to "Going to California."

"You know, Sammy, there's another way," Dean said casually after almost thirty minutes had passed.

Young-Sam's head whipped around and Dean caught a glimpse of the kid's blotchy, tear-streaked face, his watery eyes and red nose.

"What? What other way?"

"You could stay here," Dean said cautiously. "In this time, I mean. Not go back."

Dean waited while young-Sam took that in, glancing over to catch the look of shock that had replaced the sullen misery.

"I'm not even sure we _can_ send you back," Dean went on when young-Sam continued to stare. "My brother's the one who knows a lot about spell-work. It's not exactly something we do every day."

"But – what about Dean?"

Dean felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise again. He pulled his arm back and shifted uncomfortably on the seat.

"What about him?" Dean knew exactly who the kid was talking about, and it wasn't him. Not really.

"I can't leave him alone," young-Sam said.

Dean shrugged. This was the least of his concerns right now. "He'll be fine," he assured the kid. "My brother's with him."

"He doesn't know!" young-Sam said, anxiety clouding his smooth visage like a gathering storm. "He doesn't know your brother. No way he'll figure out who that big dude with the hair really is. He'll think – if I don't go back, he'll think I ran away, and if he never finds me, he'll blame himself. It'll kill him!"

 _Damn it,_ Dean thought. _Why does this kid have to be too smart for his own good?_

"He'll be fine," Dean said again. "Trust me. I know how he thinks."

Which was a lie. Of course Dean would beat himself up if he couldn't find his thirteen-year-old brother. Of course it would kill him, however slowly.

"Please, mister, I can't stay here," young-Sam's voice was pleading, and when Dean glanced at him – yep, those damn puppy-dog eyes of his were in full force. Fuck.

"Sammy, listen to me." Dean squared his shoulders and clenched his jaw. "Nothing bad's gonna happen to you if you stay here, don't you get that? I can keep you safe. You'll grow up, go to college, have that normal life you're so desperate for. I'll make sure of it."

"Not without my brother," young-Sam said. "I can't do it without my brother."

"Yes, you can!" Dean insisted, the response coming so naturally it was if he'd heard it somewhere before.

"Well, I won't," young-Sam insisted. "Not unless you know a way to bring Dean into the future and save him, too."

"That's not gonna happen, Sam," Dean shook his head. "I'm sorry. I don't think there's any way to make that happen. There's rules about time travel, and I'm pretty sure you can't share the same time-stream with yourself. One of you would get canceled out or something." Although he knew that wasn't true from personal experience, he wasn't about to tell young-Sam that.

"Then I have to go back," young-Sam said fiercely. "We have to find a way to send me back."

"How can you want that?" Dean clasped the steering wheel so hard it hurt. "You go back, you know what happens!"

"I don't care!" young-Sam said fiercely. "I need my brother. He needs me. We belong together. Don't you understand that? You, of all people? How can you leave your brother in the past? What the hell's wrong with you?"

"He'll be fine there." Dean took a deep breath. "He'll watch over your Dean. The main thing is, we derail the whole destiny thing. You stay here, that can't happen."

"But it's the past," young-Sam said. "It's already happened."

"Not to you," Dean said. "It hasn't happened to _you._ If you stay here, it doesn't have to."

Young-Sam shook his head. "Then it'll happen to somebody else," he insisted. "All those other psychic children? If it's not us, then one of them will do it. You're condemning some other poor kids to go through what happened to you and your brother."

"I don't care," Dean growled. "It's not happening to _you._ End of story."

"But it already has! It happened to you and your brother," young-Sam repeated, and Dean had to hand it to him; he was calmer than Dean expected him to be, like he had switched directions and started on a new strategy. "Keeping me here can't change that. I know you and your brother suffered real bad. What you guys went through...Hell and everything...I can't even imagine how horrible that must have been. But the thing is, you survived! Knowing you and your brother came through all right? That's – that's amazing. Inspiring. It's the kind of story people tell their grandchildren. You're the guys that saved the world!"

"No!" Dean growled, slamming the flat of his hand against the steering wheel. "You don't get it, kid. It wasn't supposed to happen at all. It was all a set-up from the start. The angels, the apocalypse, Lucifer, Hell, even our parents being set up to get married and have us in the first place, all of it. I went back in time twice and forward in time another time to try to stop it, but the fuckin' angels manipulated the whole thing. Well, not this time. This time we've got the chance to stick it to them, and I say we shove it up their feathered asses."

Young-Sam sucked his lower lip between his teeth and lowered his eyes. Dean waited, letting the kid process his words but knowing instinctively that young-Sam was working out a way to get through to Dean, a way to derail his thinking and get what he wanted.

"You know I'm in love with him, right?" young-Sam said finally, his voice low and tight, sounding older than his almost-fourteen years by way too much.

A shock of terror rushed through Dean's veins. He knew exactly what young-Sam was talking about, but there was no way in hell he was going to let him know that. He clutched the steering wheel and shot a quick glance at young-Sam's face, open and vulnerable and fierce, and he couldn't do it. He couldn't pretend with this kid looking at him like that. It wasn't in him.

"Sam –" Dean started, taking a deep breath.

"You and your brother –" Young-Sam couldn't say it, and Dean wasn't about to make him say it. That would be fuckin' _wrong,_ damn it.

"Look, Sam, it doesn't matter, okay? It doesn't matter now because you're going to get that normal life you've been wanting, see? It's all going to be normal from now on."

Young-Sam was silent, and Dean was terrified he'd said the wrong thing, admitted too much, let the kid know too much.

Dean had been in love with his brother, too.

**//**//***

They reached the bunker late that afternoon, after a tense car-ride in which Dean felt like an evil kidnapper and young-Sam was silent and thoughtful. Dean knew the kid was scheming, trying to come up with a plan, and Dean wanted to kick himself for playing his hand so early. Why had he said anything about keeping young-Sam here? They probably weren't going to be able to get him home anyway. The timeline would probably never be fixed no matter how hard they tried, and young-Sam would stay here in the future the way Gavin MacLeod had done for all those years. There hadn't been any need for Dean to tell young-Sam he'd planned it that way.

Dean had fucked up. Again.

"So this is where you live?" Young-Sam couldn't help the little gasp that escaped him when they entered the bunker.

"Home sweet home," Dean nodded, leading the way up the stairs from the garage.

"This place is like a fortress," young-Sam commented as he gazed down dimly lit corridors, eyes glazed with awe.

"It is, kinda," Dean agreed. "I'll give you a tour after supper, if you want."

"All these doors..." young-Sam breathed as they walked down the corridor toward the library. "Do you and your brother live here alone?"

"It's just us," Dean nodded, directing young-Sam to drop his duffel in Room 15, which had become their unofficial guest room since both Mary and Castiel had stayed there recently. Dean was pretty sure older-Sam had remembered to change the sheets before they left for Maine.

"And here's the library," Dean announced as they rounded the corner at the end of the hall. "All the lore on every supernatural creature or event up through the 1950s is right here, somewhere. Sam's catalogued a lot of it so we can look stuff up while we're on the road. He's been adding to it in his spare time, updating it with all the things we've learned on our own."

"Wow," young-Sam breathed as he gazed at the bookshelves, letting his fingers skim along the spines of the books. "So somewhere in here there's a spell to reverse what that skin-walker did?"

"That's the idea," Dean said. "Knock yourself out."

"Where are you going?"

Dean dangled the plastic grocery bags from his fingers. "I'm going to rustle us up some supper."

He took the time to run a load of laundry while he fixed supper, humming along in his head to one of the Pearl Jam tunes they'd heard at the museum the day before. "Even Flow" wasn't a bad song, he decided, although he'd never tell Sam that.

Over a supper of Dean's best homemade burgers and pie – okay, the pie wasn't homemade, but it was one of the best store-bought pies Dean had found locally – young-Sam leafed through ancient manuscripts while Dean checked the local TV listings for re-runs or live-streams of _Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman_ or _Star Trek: the Next Generation_ after glancing distastefully through a dusty pile of books.

It wasn't like he hadn't made an effort. He'd left a perfunctory voice-mail for Castiel, although he was pretty sure the angel no longer had the kind of mojo needed for time-travel. Asking for Rowena's help was another option, but Dean didn't want her anywhere near this vulnerable younger version of his brother, no matter how helpful she might be. The last thing they needed was help from an enemy who would rather see them both disappear into oblivion anyway. Besides, Sam had been the one who had developed the rapport with Rowena, not Dean. Sam could control her better than Dean could ever hope to do, in no small part because of Dean's former relationship with her son. And Dean didn't want to bring up _that_ particular past misadventure in front of young-Sam, no sir.

"Besides our grandfather's spell, I got zilch," Dean announced an hour later, after glancing through a couple of spell-books.

"Same," young-Sam murmured, staring at the spell-book he'd been studying for the past hour. The book was in Latin, so Dean hadn't even bothered with that one. Not that he'd ever looked at most of the books in the library in the first place.

Even as young as he was, the kid seemed to understand Dean's aversion to research. He'd been taking notes, using an old notebook of Sam's he must have found tucked away in the bookcase somewhere. As Dean got up to clear the plates from the table, young-Sam tucked an old note into his pocket.

"So how about we take the night off?" Dean suggested. "I'll give you a tour of the bunker. We can watch _Star Trek_ on Netflix. I'll make us some popcorn. We'll get a fresh start in the morning."

"Okay."

Young-Sam surprised him by agreeing easily, and in retrospect Dean realized he should have suspected something. But he was so relieved by the kid's acquiescence he couldn't help smiling, couldn't prevent the sense of a weight lifted from his shoulders and his heart un-clenching for the first time since they got back to the bunker.

This would be okay. Somehow, this would all work out.

Yet, even as the thought crossed his mind, Dean felt something tugging at the back of his brain, some little shadow reminding him that things never went well for them, that shit always hit the fan, especially when it looked like they might have dodged the bullet this time, like things might turn out all right. Nothing ever worked out for them. Dean was probably being a fool to think they could.

But young-Sam looked so young, so innocent, and Dean wanted to believe that he could be saved this time, that they were really being given a second chance. All Dean had to do was grab that chance and not let go.

"Great," he said, consumed with a hope that he knew better than to feel. "Okay, then. Let's take that tour."

Young-Sam seemed appropriately impressed with the kitchen and laundry-room, the dungeon and shooting range, the upstairs lab and the bathroom with its powerful showers. He stood in the doorway of Dean's room and stared, taking in the few objects that must have been familiar to him since Dean had held onto them since he was a kid. Sam's room was a mess, as usual, but since that's where the TV was, Dean shrugged and started collecting the books and files strewn across Sam's bed so they could sit there. He ignored the pang of guilt at invading his little brother's space without his permission, but young-Sam shook his head and wouldn't cross the threshold. He hovered in the hallway with a shuttered look on his face, like he was feeling spooked.

"Nah, it's okay," he said hesitantly. "It's really late already. I should probably go to bed."

"Dude, seriously?" Dean stood up with a handful of papers and frowned at the kid. "Come on. It's only ten o'clock."

"I know," young-Sam nodded, backing up into the hallway. "I'm just really tired, is all."

"Okay, sure, Sammy," Dean smiled, bemused. "I don't remember you being so eager for bed when you were a kid. You used to want to stay up all night."

Young-Sam shrugged, eyes shifting away shyly as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and hunched his shoulders. The gesture reminded Dean of _his_ Sam so much it made him ache.

"Yeah, okay," Dean stammered, pulling himself together. "You remember where we left your duffel, right?"

Young-Sam nodded, still not looking at him.

"Okay, good. I'll grab your clothes out of the dryer. There are towels in the bathroom. I'll let you do your thing."

Dean laid the papers down on a chair and flipped the light off as he left. It did seem a little cold in Sam's room, now that he thought about it. No wonder young-Sam didn't want to hang out in there. If his older little brother never returned, the room would become a kind of shrine. Dean wasn't sure he'd ever be able to clean it out.

_Not thinking about that._

He ignored the shiver that ran up his spine as he retrieved young-Sam's clothes from the laundry-room and folded them neatly, convincing himself yet again that older-Sam would understand if this didn't get fixed and the kid stayed here. Older-Sam would accept Dean's need to protect his younger self.

When he returned to the guest bedroom, it was empty, but he could hear water running, so he guessed young-Sam was in the shower. As he laid the kid's clean clothes on the bed, Dean ignored the strangeness of putting young-Sam to bed where their mother had slept a few weeks before. He didn't think about the fact that if young-Sam stayed here, he would eventually meet Mary. Dean didn't wonder what that would be like for her, whether she would feel any more obligation towards the boy than she had toward her adult sons.

If things went that way, Dean would deal with it. He hadn't yet given up on the initial plan to reverse the spell, he reminded himself; presumably, older-Sam was working on it from his end in the past, although Dean's memories of that time were a little vague.

Feeling restless and unsettled, Dean decided he couldn't go to bed yet and didn't want to watch TV in Sam's room, so he went back to the library to drink and stare at his laptop. The half-empty bottle of Dewar's he found stashed behind the telescope wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst either. Definitely beat the bathtub tequila he'd resorted to on too many occasions in the past.

He was half-way through "Hot Japanese Anime Girls" on YouTube when he felt a vibration. He paused the video and waited a moment in hazy silence, instinctively fighting down the effects of the alcohol. Then he felt it again.

"Dean!"

The call for help was unmistakable, and although he hadn't heard young-Sam cry out like that in a long time, Dean was on his feet in an instant, tearing down the hall with his gun in his hand.

"Sam!"

The first thing he noticed was that the guest-room door was open. But he didn't stop to check whether young-Sam was in the room because there was something glowing further down the hall. The door to Sam's room was framed in bright white light, which also poured from the slats in the door, too bright to be natural. Dean could swear he heard a high-pitched whine, almost too high to hear, along with the vibration he had felt earlier.

"Sam!" Dean grabbed at the doorknob, instinctively shielding his eyes with his other arm as he barreled into the room, stumbling a little because the floor was uneven.

A sound like rushing wind filled his ears for a moment before it stopped, sucked away with the light, leaving Dean blinking in near-darkness. He was immediately aware of the smells and sounds of a forest at night, and he realized he wasn't in the bunker anymore. The floor was covered with small stones and twigs, which explained why it wasn't even; it wasn't a floor at all, but rather the ground under tall evergreen trees, opening just ahead of him into a small clearing. Stars shone down and the air was cool and crisp. An owl hooted softly and a breeze rustled the branches around him.

Dean whirled around, expecting to see the door from the bunker into Sam's room, but there was nothing there but more trees. The place was familiar, and Dean recognized the Maine woods where he and Sam had been hunting skin-walkers three nights ago. He tucked his gun into his pocket and only then noticed that he was wearing his coat, as he had been that night, and his head was clear again, as if he hadn't just drunk half-a-bottle of scotch.

Then he heard a sound his heart would always know, a familiar presence his soul would always respond to.

"Dean!"

The deep bellow made Dean's pulse quicken, made his palms sweat. He moved instinctively towards the sound, forever attracted like a magnet to that voice.

"Sam!"

When the big man himself appeared at the edge of the clearing, Dean's gratitude was like a punch in the gut that made him shake and tear up simultaneously. Sam had been running, and when he saw Dean he stopped short. Relief flooded his features, softening the anxiety that had been there just a moment before.

"Dean!" Sam breathed the word on a sigh this time, long legs carrying him across the clearing in only a couple of powerful strides. Dean moved forward out of his own unconscious compulsion and they slammed together in a pool of moonlight, smashing into each other like tectonic plates, like a cosmic event, like brothers who meant the world to one another.

"It worked! It worked! Oh my God, it actually worked," Sam babbled as he buried his face in the crook of Dean's neck, stooping in that familiar way that Dean understood better than anyone.

"Yeah," Dean agreed, clutching at Sam's back just to hold onto handfuls of his brother, to be sure he was real. "You did it, Sam! You did it."

He fought down the lump in his throat that was choking off his air and making his eyes water, but it was mostly a losing battle. Truth was, Dean's relief at having his older little-brother back was about the most intense feeling he'd ever experienced. How had he ever thought he could live without this? He'd never been able to live without older-Sam, _his_ Sam, in the past. How had he convinced himself he could manage it this time?

"How'd you do it, Sam? How'd you reverse the spell?" Now Dean was babbling and his cheeks were wet and he didn't give a shit because Sam was in his arms again. "How'd you do it, huh?"

"Knew you needed me," Sam croaked brokenly against his ear. "Couldn't let you grow old without me, old man."

When he felt Sam's lips press against his ear, then his cheek, Dean turned his face instinctively toward the kiss, knew it was coming like it was something they always did, especially after a separation. His dick was instantly on board as Sam's lips brushed his, lust joining the cocktail of emotions running through his system as Sam's big hand held Dean's jaw so he could deepen the kiss. Sam's hot tongue and the drag of his soft lips felt so familiar, so _good,_ that Dean let it happen without protest, kissing back as much as he could as Sam plundered his mouth, demanding and needy as always.

 _As always._ Dean's memories were a little hazy, but he was pretty sure this was new. He was pretty sure he'd remember if he'd been kissing his brother on a regular basis.

So why did it feel so familiar?

"Hey, uh, Sammy, wait a minute." It took intense effort to pull away, to tip his head back and look up at Sam with his hand in Sam's shaggy mane, pulling him off by the scruff of the neck like he was some kind of over-eager puppy.

Sam blinked, his eyes blown dark with lust, cheeks flushed, lips slick and swollen with Dean's kiss. Dean wanted more. He couldn't think straight. Why shouldn't he kiss Sam again?

"This isn't – don't get me wrong, it's damn hot and I don't want it to stop but – this isn't the way I remember things."

Sam frowned and shook his head a little. "What things?"

"This," Dean glanced down at Sam's mouth, then back up at his eyes. "Us. Like this. I don't remember it this way."

"What are you talking about?" Sam might be a little sex-drunk right now, but he wasn't stupid. He suddenly seemed to get what Dean was saying; his eyes widened and he took a step back, staring down at Dean's coat, clutching the lapels in his big hands.

"Where did you get this?"

The question was so nonsensical, so out of the blue, that at first Dean didn't understand.

"This jacket," Sam clarified. "You lost this jacket years ago. Where did you find it?"

Dean frowned, looked down at the leather coat that had been his, and their father's before him, for as long as he could remember.

Although he hadn't been wearing it in the bunker, he had been wearing it the night he found that younger Sam in the woods. These woods. Three nights ago.

"Lost it?" Dean was shocked at the mere thought. "You're kidding, right? I'd rather chop my foot off than lose this jacket, and you know it."

"Okay, something's off." Sam lifted a hand in a halting gesture, and Dean just wanted to feel it on his face again, wanted Sam to grab him and do that thing with his tongue...

What the hell? How had that never happened before? Seriously? He and Sam had never? But Dean had thought about it, that's for sure. He'd definitely dreamed about it and jerked off to it. He just never acted on it because...

Well, because Sam needed normal. Incest wasn't normal. Not that Dean cared for himself. He knew he was a freak. But for Sam, Dean had always repressed those desires because he knew how badly Sam wanted a normal life, and because Dean had wanted Sam to have that life with every fiber of his being.

Of course, that was years ago, before things had all gone to hell anyway. What difference did it make now? It was just years of habit, repressing those urges – and Dean knew Sam had them too because he didn't have any qualms about expressing them when he was soulless, did he? – that they had never acted on those feelings.

But Dean had always been ready. He'd always hoped one day Sam would decide that Dean was it for him, just as Sam was it for Dean. Nobody else could ever give them what they needed, not really. Not in any way that mattered.

Sam had kissed him, and Dean had kissed back like his life depended on it, like it was the most normal thing in the world. Like they'd been doing it forever and it was perfectly natural for them, as it should be.

So why wasn't it again?

"Dean, focus." Sam still had Dean's jacket in his hands, shaking him a little, and Dean raised his eyes from Sam's lips with real effort. "Things are different. The time-streams are off. I need you to tell me what you remember."

"About what?"

"We were hunting skin-walkers, right?" Sam prompted. "And then?"

"Uh, right," Dean frowned, blinking up at Sam dazedly. "The skin-walker that did the spell died over there, under that tree. Then the kid showed up."

"The kid?" Sam repeated. "What kid? What are you talking about?"

"He was you, Sam." Dean shrugged. "He was about thirteen, dressed in that hoodie you used to wear all the time, the one from the church yard-sale in Hibbing."

"I remember," Sam said. "Okay, so I didn't just time-travel; I switched places in time with my younger self?"

Dean licked his lips. "That's what I figured, yeah."

"How did you know?" Sam seemed genuinely curious, as if he didn't remember this part.

"You told me your name was Jack Harper, in the past," Dean reminded him. "From that Tom Cruise movie we just watched."

"I did, didn't I?" Sam grinned, dimpling gorgeously. "Well, at least that's the same. I was trying to let you know I was okay. After a week or so I figured you'd be worried sick, and I – I had to see you, even if it was just that younger-you."

"A week?" Dean repeated, shaking his head a little. "It was only three days, man. You were only gone three days."

Sam took a deep breath, backing away from Dean with a little shake of his shaggy head. Dean watched as he scrubbed a hand over his scruffy jaw and blinked tears away.

"No," he said softly, his voice breaking. "It was almost a month for me. I was starting to think I'd never be able to fix it. I went to the bunker, left notes there that I was hoping you would find just so you would know what had happened, how I tried to get back to you. I _tried_ , Dean. I did every spell I could think of, over and over. I tried dozens of new ones. Nothing worked. I don't even know how I did it, finally. I don't even know how I'm here."

"Hey." Dean moved forward out of deepest instinct, wanting to pull his giant brother into his arms and hold him, maybe kiss him again because he seemed okay with that and Dean really wanted it bad. But he settled for grabbing onto Sam's shoulders, giving him a reassuring shake. "Hey, you're here now. That's what matters."

"So – " Sam pulled away, agitated, and Dean could almost see his big brain working overtime to get a handle on the problem. "So what did you do?" he asked. "What did you and little-me do for – three days, was it?"

"Yeah."

A stab of guilt made Dean lower his eyes; he couldn't exactly tell Sam how much fun he had, hanging out with that younger version of his brother, not when Sam had been suffering, desperately trying to reverse the spell so he could go home. It just didn't seem right. It made Dean feel like a dick.

"Yeah, uh, so I took the kid back to the bunker," Dean said. "I figured you were working on the problem from your end, and maybe together you two could figure it out. Which seems to be what happened, by the way. If you don't know how you did this, then maybe it was the kid."

Sam frowned. "I didn't even know the kid was here," he said. "I mean, he was missing, in that earlier time, but I knew that. It was that time I ran away. You remember. You and Dad went off on that hunt in Colorado and left me alone in Flagstaff, so I just took off."

"I remember, Sam," Dean growled. "Believe me, I remember."

"Well, I don't," Sam said, running a hand through his hair, one hand on his hip. "I honestly don't. I've got no memory of time-traveling during that little adventure, so if it really happened, I must've gone back at the exact minute that I left, with no memories of it at all."

"Good," Dean barked, although he couldn't deny the little pang of sadness that pierced his heart. He'd secretly hoped the kid would have some residual memories of the time he spent in the future. He'd liked to think young-Sam hadn't totally hated the experience. Not to mention, he'd hoped the kid could stop the future, if he got back to his own time. Maybe young-Sam could fix things.

But maybe it was just as well the younger Sam didn't remember. Finding out he was going to be the vessel of the devil himself couldn't have been fun. Maybe it was better for the kid to have a few more years of his shitty childhood and young-adulthood before things got so crappy.

Besides, there probably wouldn't have been any way to derail the whole thing in the past, so who was Dean fooling? Things never worked out like that for them. For the Winchesters, shit just turned into worse shit, no matter what choices they made. Why should this have been any different?

"Maybe it was both of us," Sam suggested once they'd established the date and time and determined that only a minute had passed in this time-stream since the skin-walker's spell had sent Sam spiraling through time. "Maybe we had to reverse the spell simultaneously, since we were occupying each other's time-streams."

Which didn't make sense, since the time-streams were obviously misaligned. But it was the best theory they come up with, so they left it at that for now.

Dean was grumpier than he should have been about having to re-burn and bury the skin-walkers.

"I did this three days ago," he complained. Nevertheless, he shed his leather jacket and rolled his sleeves up, ignoring his aching shoulders as he shoved the tip of his shovel into the hard spring earth. Working side-by-side with his mountain-sized brother made the work go faster than it had with the little pipsqueak version of Sam, at least. This time, they finished well before dawn and had time to hit the all-night drive-thru at McDonald's before heading back to the motel.

Sam did a double-take when he saw the two beds.

"I swear when we checked in we got a king," he said, and Dean glanced sharply at him. "What? It's a liberal state. Gay marriage is legal here."

"Not what I was thinking," Dean growled, then pushed past Sam to head to the bathroom. "Gonna take a shower."

As he let the warm water wash the grime and smoke from his skin, Dean tried to ignore the memory of Sam's kiss. It'd been so good, being held by Sam's big hands, feeling Sam's long fingers wrapping around the back of his neck, the scratch of his stubble dragging along Dean's lips. Dean had wanted that for so long, it didn't seem real now. This all seemed like some kind of elaborate dream.

When Dean walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, Sam was sitting at the rickety table, scrolling through news reports on his laptop. He took Dean's breath away for a moment, like he always did when Dean watched Sam working, oblivious to Dean's stare.

"Everything the way you remember?" Dean asked.

Sam glanced up at him, gaze going dark as he took in Dean's near-nakedness, making Dean blush and look down as he rifled through his duffle for fresh underwear.

"Yeah," Sam breathed softly. "Just like I remember."

Dean glanced up as Sam's tongue snaked out and licked along his lower lip. Dean felt a shiver go up his spine.

"We should get back to the bunker," Dean said, his voice shakier than he would have liked. "You should take a shower so we can get going."

"Yeah, sure, Dean," Sam climbed to his feet, long legs moving toward him slow, with purpose. "So far, the only difference between timelines is that jacket. And us."

Dean found the boxers, stood holding them as Sam drew near. "Us?"

"Our relationship," Sam clarified. He stood so close Dean could feel his heat.

Dean's heart was pounding, his hands shaking; he was sure Sam could see that, could see the flush in his cheeks and chest. Hell, his ears were probably red, too.

How had Sam's presence never had this effect on him before?

Or had it?

Dean was fairly sure he'd always had the hots for his brother, but he was also pretty sure he'd always done a damned good job of hiding it. Sam had never known. Or had he?

"Please." Dean closed his eyes against the onslaught of emotion, against the overwhelming presence of Sam all around him. "Just don't tell me this started when we were kids. I – I tried so hard to keep you safe, Sam. I never wanted this for you. I wanted you to have a normal life..."

"I know," Sam whispered, brushing the backs of his fingers against Dean's cheek, making Dean shiver. "You were so virtuous. I thought I was a monster for wanting you the way I did."

"No," Dean gasped as Sam's hand slipped behind his neck, tilting his head up. "You were never a monster, Sammy. You were just a kid. Horny, pissed off, a little spoiled, maybe. I was the freak. I was the one who should have known better."

"Eighteen," Sam said as Dean's eyes fluttered open to find Sam gazing down at him, holding his face like it was something infinitely precious, long thumb sweeping over Dean's cheekbone. "I was eighteen. That summer before college. You didn't want to but I begged. I pleaded and threatened to leave because I couldn't stand it anymore, and you gave in. You let me have what I wanted. Then I left for college without you because I felt like I'd forced you to do something you didn't really want. I was a real bitch, Dean. A stupid, selfish kid."

"Not stupid," Dean murmured, heart hammering so hard it was making him light-headed. "Never stupid. You were the smartest kid I knew. Still are. Not a kid now, though."

He was babbling, wanting Sam to kiss him so bad it hurt, wanting to know if it would feel familiar like it did before.

"But that's not how you remember it." Sam frowned.

Dean made a little frustrated sound, completely against his will, and covered for it by dropping the towel and pushing in close, grabbing Sam's hips to yank him flush against Dean's body.

"Shut up and kiss me," he ordered harshly, and Sam did, softly at first, then with greater intent as Dean opened to him, unable to contain the moan that escaped his throat.

If this was how things were between them in this timeline or whatever, then Dean was more than okay with it. He didn't need to second-guess it. It was like the best consolation prize possible for losing younger-Sam, for fucking up the second chance he'd wanted to give that kid.

But he didn't deserve this.

"Sam, we need to talk," Dean gasped as Sam's lips kissed along his jaw to his ear. He slid his hands between their bodies, pushing Sam away with real reluctance.

It wasn't fair to Sam that Dean should keep that second-chance business from him. It flooded him with shame to think that he could just indulge in his lust for his brother when Sam had no idea that he'd almost been left in the past deliberately. If it hadn't been for young-Sam figuring out how to reverse the spell...

Dean knew instinctively that was what must have happened. The kid got back to the bunker and found those notes Sam had left and figured out how to do the spell that would take him back to his brother. Of course he did. That's what Sam did because it was what he always did.

"Okay." Sam cleared his throat as he backed off, worry creasing his big brow,, getting himself under control with obvious reluctance. "Okay, Dean, sure. Anything you want."

Sam lowered his eyes dejectedly, and Dean couldn't have that, couldn't have Sam thinking he was forcing himself on Dean when nothing could be further from the truth.

"No, Sam, that's not it." Dean tried to be reassuring, aware that he was naked and still clutching his boxers in one hand. "Look, just go take a shower and we'll talk, okay? There's things I should tell you before we – you have a right to know what happened while you were gone, and I need a minute to clear my head, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, Dean." Sam blinked, nodding anxiously in that way Dean knew too well.

"Look, it's got nothing to do with this thing between us, okay? That's totally okay with me, believe me." Dean licked his lips, trying to hide his own nervousness. "More than okay, in fact, so don't you worry about that for a minute, you hear me?"

Sam nodded, biting his lower lip but still unable to meet Dean's eyes. "I have something I need to tell you, too," he said, chest heaving, as if he was about to start hyperventilating.

"After your shower," Dean commanded, tamping down on the panic he felt rising in his chest at Sam's words. Great. More confessions. "We'll talk in the car." It was easier that way. They didn't have to look at each other, and Dean could focus on the driving if the conversation got too weird.

Also there were no beds. Which was good, because after Dean told Sam what he needed to tell him, Sam might not want to sleep with him anyway.

Dean tried not to think about how disappointed he would be if that happened.


	4. If You Believed In Me

"So, what did you want to tell me?" Sam asked later in the car.

They didn't need to stop at the diner in Manchester for breakfast this time, since they'd already hit the McDonald's, so they were on the road, the sun just coming over the horizon as they headed south on I-95 down the New England coast.

"You first," Dean hedged, not sure how anything Sam could say would be worse than his own confession.

Sam squared his jaw and stared straight ahead, out the windshield. "Okay," he said with a nod. "We obviously have different memories of the past sixteen years or so. We'll need to sort that out at some point."

"That's not what you were going to say." Dean shook his head. "You have something to tell me that's bothering you, so say it."

Sam took a deep breath. "I'm guessing you don't remember it this way, but when I tracked you down, back in 1997, I was already pretty strung-out and desperate. I couldn't get back to this time and I let myself think – I started to believe I'd be stuck there."

Guilt slammed through Dean's veins like ice-water, making a lump rise in his throat and bringing tears to his eyes.

"I knew where you'd be," Sam went on. "In 1997, I knew where to find you. So I pretended to be a hunter friend of Dad's, promised to help you find your little brother."

"I remember all that," Dean nodded. "I already told you that's how I remember it."

Sam shook his head impatiently. "Do you remember me fucking you?" he said, his voice low and dark, and Dean glanced sharply at him. Sam was staring – no, make that _glaring,_ his jaw working as he huffed a breath out through his nose, reminding Dean of an angry bull.

"No, I can't say I remember that," Dean agreed quietly, instinctively calming the wild beast next to him. "I'm pretty sure I would've remembered that."

"I cheated on you, Dean," Sam spat out, as if accusing himself of a capital crime instead of some venial sin against a version of his brother that no longer existed. "I had sex with that younger you even though I knew I shouldn't. I knew I shouldn't stop trying to get back to my own time, to my own brother. That younger-you belonged to _his_ little brother, and I took advantage of him and cheated on _you_ in the process."

"Wasn't me," Dean reminded him softly. "You and I haven't even – we never – " Dean waved his hand between them, unable to use the words, grateful to Sam for being so verbal and saving Dean the embarrassment, although it also made him blush like a virgin.

Which he was, technically, at least as far as men were concerned...

Oh fuck it.

"So it's not," Dean finished lamely. "You can get off your moral high horse and crawl around in the mud with the rest of us lowlifes. You didn't cheat."

Sam bit his lip and stared out the windshield for a moment. "So you never even thought about it?" he asked. "Back then, I mean. When you met me and you thought I was Jack Harper?"

"Oh, I thought about it," Dean admitted with a smirk. "You were hot. And I was a horny teenager. I definitely thought about it. A lot."

Sam huffed out a breath and shook his head. "So that wasn't me," he said. "You're remembering a different me, from a different timeline."

Dean frowned. This whole thing was making his head hurt. Damn, he hated time travel.

"You know what? I don't care," he decided, throwing a glare of his own in Sam's direction. "None of it matters. You're here now, basically back where you belong, so even if the timeline is off a little, it doesn't matter. Does it?"

Sam was silent, chewing on his bottom lip, staring out the windshield with that familiar expression that was half pout, half concentration.

"You said you had something to talk to me about," he said after so much time had passed that Dean had started to think he wouldn't remember. Dean had even started to feel a little guilty about it.

"Yeah." Dean sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, an unconscious reflection of Sam's gesture. Then he caught himself and stuck it out again. He could tell Sam was watching him, so he licked his lips, heard Sam give a little gasp and shift on the bench like he was trying to relieve the tightness in his jeans.

 _Like candy from a baby_ , Dean thought with a smirk. He'd been doing this all his life, he realized, getting a rise out of Sam. A rise. Heh. How they'd never acted on it was a mystery, though. They must've been so fucked up, so consumed with guilt over their feelings for each other, all they could manage was this constant teasing.

Sam didn't even have to tease. He exuded hotness just sitting there, the fucker.

"Yeah?" Sam prompted after enough time had passed for it to be obvious they were both feeling pretty constrained. Combined with the adrenaline rush of their recent adventure and their general state of exhaustion, Dean could almost smell the pheromones. Sitting so close in a small space was getting to them the way it usually did. Dean was sure the sexual tension wasn't new between them; they'd just been repressing it all these years.

God, what idiots they'd been.

"We should eat," Dean suggested, nodding at a highway sign indicating food available at the next exit.

"Dean, you're stalling," Sam reprimanded.

"I just think we should eat," Dean shrugged, ignoring the fluttering in his belly that told him Sam was right. "We've been on the road for four hours, haven't eaten since Mickey-D's last night, and we're running on fumes after flying around through God knows how many timelines or whatever for God knows how long. I'm hungry."

"Fine!" Sam snapped. "Let's stop. But whatever it is you couldn't say back at the motel isn't going to get easier when we're facing each other across a table. Just sayin'."

Damn it. Sam knew him too well, of course.

"Okay, you're right," Dean grumbled, passing the exit with only a glancing glare. "But this isn't going to sound any better on an empty stomach."

"Just spit it out, Dean." Sam threw his hands up. "It can't be any worse than what I just told you." Then Dean could feel Sam looking at him sharply as something must have occurred to him. "Can it?"

Dean had a sudden thought that was so horrific it made him gasp, made his eyes go wide in horror. Sam was watching him, his gaze pinched and worried, and Dean realized the kid was wondering if the man next to him was some kind of monster after all. The worst kind.

"No, no, not that." Dean shook his head. "How could you think that? Jesus, Sam. I'm your brother. You know me. We don't hurt kids."

"I'm not so good at that," Sam muttered miserably, and it took Dean a couple of seconds to understand what he was talking about. Then he shook his head sharply.

"No, Sam, that's different," he insisted. "Eighteen-year-old me was a total slut. I'm sure I was asking for it. And I was definitely old enough. Not exactly a virgin."

Sam flinched subtly.

"Fuck, Sam, I _know_ I wasn't a virgin," Dean insisted. "There's no way, in any timeline, that I was a virgin at eighteen..."

When Sam flinched again, Dean got it. It hit him like a ton of bricks, in fact, making him feel like a fool and blush like a – _okay!_ Like a virgin.

Fuck.

"You know what? Never mind!" Dean snapped. "This conversation is over. We are not talking about my – theoretical me. Gay-virgin or not, that guy was not me."

"Pretty sure we've established that," Sam agreed. "So, are you? A – you know."

Although Dean understood exactly what Sam was asking, the question took him by surprise. He could feel his eyes widen and his lips move as he tried not to sputter, as he tried to form a reasonable response, or find some way to deflect or joke his way out of a straight response.

"None of your fucking business, okay?" he blurted finally, eloquent as usual. "Now let it go!"

Sam raised his eyebrows and said nothing, but Dean could feel him smirking. He could feel Sam slouching on his side of the bench with a little satisfied smile on his lips, making Dean want to punch him. Or kiss him. Whatever.

At any rate, thinking about Dean's gay-virginity had apparently made Sam forget that Dean had a confession to make, so Dean took that as a win. It gave him a little more time to figure out what he would say when he finally got around to admitting that he hadn't tried very hard to get Sam back in the first place, and how it might be at least partly his fault that Sam had ended up in a different timeline altogether.

At any rate, it bothered Dean more than he would admit, the idea that Sam's brother was really somebody else, some guy who let Sam fuck him and who lost his leather jacket years ago. He wondered how many other differences there were, worried that one day he'd discover some major discrepancy that would make everything seem completely weird between them. Something besides the sex and the jacket."So, you know we're sort of working with the British Men of Letters at the moment," Dean prompted when they were seated at Stella's an hour later, facing each other across the table. "You know about Mom, right?"

"Dean, it's all the same," Sam assured him. "I keep notes on my phone, remember? I've got case files. I've already checked into everything we've been working on over the past six months and it's all the same."

"I just keep thinking there must be more differences," Dean shrugged. "I don't want to be blindsided when we're in the middle of a case and suddenly you turn out to be left-handed or something."

"Don't worry, I won't let you down," Sam groused as he took a bite of his salad. "You would know if there was something important that was different. So far, from world events to all the things that have happened to us over the past ten years or so, it's all the same."

Dean frowned. "So this thing between us, it didn't keep us from making the same mistakes?" He knew he was treading on delicate ground, but he couldn't help hoping some things had never happened. "You still took up with Jessica? I moved in with Lisa for a year?"

"It hasn't been easy, Dean." Sam shook his head. "Sex doesn't solve everything. We've had our times apart, just like you remember."

Dean lowered his voice and leaned halfway across the table as a terrible thought crashed into his mind.

"Ruby? I came back from hell and you cheated on me with that demon bitch? What the hell, Sam? We were together. Why didn't you just tell her that?"

Sam flushed, clenched his jaw and shook his head. "I can't believe you're bringing that up again," he muttered. "You promised you'd never talk about it again."

"Yeah, well, I'm only now figuring out that you cheated on me with her, Sam," Dean said. "How could you do that?"

Sam looked up and glared at Dean with so much rage in his eyes it made Dean blink. "Same way you could fuck Benny while you were in Purgatory," he hissed. "Or Cas when he was human. Or Gadreel when you thought he was me. We both made mistakes, Dean. A lot of them. Shit happened, and we dealt with it, same way we always do."

"By not dealing with it, you mean," Dean nodded, more shocked by Sam's revelations than he would admit. Not only had he never had sex with any of those men, but if he had, he wouldn't have considered those transgressions to be infidelities, since he and Sam weren't in that kind of relationship in the first place.

Nevertheless, what Sam was telling him was seriously messed up. It killed Dean to think about how badly he'd hurt this beautiful man without even knowing it. What kind of a bastard did that? What kind of a monster was that other Dean?

"It was never perfect." Sam shook his head again. "We've definitely had our rough patches. But it's all in the past now. We've been good these past couple of years. I'm sorry you don't remember it that way."

"I would never cheat on you, Sam!" Dean said fiercely, staring down at his empty plate like it held all the answers. "I can't imagine doing that to you. If you were mine, I'd never – "

"Shhhh." Sam laid his hand over Dean's on the table and Dean turned his hand over so they could tangle their fingers together. "I know. You've already apologized. I've already apologized. We've been through so much it doesn't even matter anymore, Dean. When all this Nephilim stuff is over, we're planning to take a vacation. Maybe visit Eileen in Ireland."

Dean shook his head and gave Sam a shaky smile as he pulled his hand away. "You know I hate flying."

Sam smiled just enough to let his dimples show and nodded as the waitress approached with their check. It was Penny, the fifty-something waitress from the other timeline, who had obviously never seen him before. "The Grand Canyon, then. You always want to go there. After our next Vegas trip we can stop there for a few days."

"Not a bad idea," Dean agreed as he pulled bills from his wallet with a distinct feeling of déjà vu.

**//**//**

"You still haven't told me what you were going to say back at the motel," Sam reminded him when they were on the road again, headed due west on the interstate through upper New York state. The sun was low on the horizon, and Dean knew the time to explain himself was long overdue. Besides, there was no way they could stop for the night until Dean cleared the air. No way.

"Yeah, about that," Dean shifted uncomfortably on the bench, hands clutching the wheel like a lifeline. "The thing is, I wasn't making as much of an effort to get you back as I probably should have been."

"What are you talking about?" Sam frowned.

"That kid was facing a hell of a future when he got back to his own time," Dean said, keeping his eyes carefully on the road. "To be honest, I sort of talked myself into keeping him."

"Keeping him?" Sam echoed, and Dean didn't have to look at Sam to read the confusion on his face.

"I was thinking maybe it was for the best," Dean said. "Maybe the kid was getting a second chance, right? Like a cosmic do-over or whatever."

Sam was silent, which is how Dean knew he'd understood what Dean was telling him.

"I know things never work out like that for us, Sam," Dean went on. "It was crazy to think maybe we could fix things if that younger you just stayed here and didn't go back. But – if you could have seen him, man. He was just a kid. Just a young kid! He didn't know what was coming...He didn't _know,_ Sammy..."

"Dean, pull over." Sam spoke in that commanding tone that Dean couldn't not obey, no matter how messed up or pissed off he was. Sam in command could not be disobeyed.

Dean took the next exit onto a deserted two-lane highway and eased the car to a stop well off the road. He turned off the engine, and for a moment they sat quietly, watching the last rays of sunlight cast long shadows across the asphalt in front of them.

Finally, Sam took a deep breath. "So, you thought you could keep little-me here in the present with you and that would stop everything that happened to us."

"Pretty much, yeah," Dean agreed. "It was worth a shot, anyway."

"And you were just going to leave me in the past," Sam said. "That was the plan."

"Wasn't much of a plan, really," Dean muttered, flinching at Sam's bluntness. "You're the one who knows all the spells. All I had was Grandpa Winchester's blood ritual and some old books back in the bunker's library. Without help, I didn't have a chance in hell of reversing that spell. Cas is useless, not to mention AWOL, and I wasn't about to ask Rowena for help. Especially after we still owe her for that memory thing she helped us with."

"Did little-me know what you had planned?"

"It wasn't much of a plan, Sam," Dean repeated. "It was more like making the best of a shitty situation. You were stuck in the past, and I couldn't get you back. But maybe younger-you could grow up without demons breathing down his neck, you know? Maybe the angels would leave him alone this time."

"Younger-you would've never gotten over his little brother's disappearance," Sam said with a shake of his head. "Dad would've blamed him."

"He had you," Dean reminded him. "You'd have his back if he got into trouble. You'd be sure he stayed the course."

"He didn't even know me, Dean!" Sam said. "Once he found out I wasn't really an old hunting buddy of Dad's, he wouldn't have ever trusted me again."

Dean took a deep breath and let it out slow, then took his sweating palms off the steering wheel and rubbed them on his thighs.

"I should have tried harder to get you back," he said. "I shouldn't have accepted what happened so easily. Hell, if it wasn't for the kid, I never would've stopped trying to fix things. I just kept thinking, he deserves a better life. He ran away so he could find something better, and the least I could do is try to make sure he got it."

Sam shook his head and abruptly got out of the car, slamming the door soundly behind him. Dean watched as he paced back and forth next to the car, scrubbing a hand over his face and running his fingers through his hair.

"I left notes, in the bunker," he muttered angrily, barely loud enough for Dean to hear.

Dean decided he should get out and stretch, maybe take a piss. This could take a while, and the evening was really lovely. They had stopped near a lake, which Dean could see through the trees in the fading light. The air smelled of pine and car exhaust.

"You left notes," Dean repeated as he shut the car door, then leaned over the roof of the car to watch Sam's movements. Agitation rolled off his big body, making the muscles of his back ripple under his shirt. Dean couldn't remember when Sam had taken off his jacket, but he was glad he had. The man's body was sheer poetry in motion, sex on legs. It would serve Dean right if he never had that. It would be just what he deserved if after this Sam decided to forget about it.

"Yes, Dean. In the book in the library. Didn't you find it?" Sam stopped pacing to glare at him, and Dean frowned in confusion.

"What book?"

"The one about skin-walkers and time travel," Sam snapped impatiently. "I left it on the shelf where you'd be sure to see it. I know I remember it being there in the present, which means neither of us had ever taken it out. We'd never had any reason to. But I figured you'd see it right away when you got back to the bunker after watching a skin-walker try to time-travel and send me to the past instead."

Dean shook his head. "No, Sam, I never saw it."

Then he remembered young-Sam tucking something into his pocket, just before he gave the kid a tour of the bunker.

"I think I know who did, though," he said. He met Sam's eyes over the top of the car and he could tell Sam realized it, too. "What did the note say?"

"The reverse-spell needed to be performed in my room," Sam explained. "It needed something of mine, like a hairbrush or something I'd worn that hadn't been washed."

"Oh." Dean nodded. "Well, that's easy, since you never do your laundry."

"Shut up." Sam frowned, but Dean could tell he wasn't angry anymore. "I wasn't even sure it would work. It was more of a summoning spell than time-travel, really. It wasn't an easy spell. I guess I figured you'd have Rowena help you with it."

Dean looked away, nervously picking at the nail on his left thumb. "Yeah, I didn't want to bring her in," he admitted. "Didn't want her anywhere near the kid."

"Yeah, I can see that," Sam said softly, and Dean looked up, surprised to hear Sam agree. "Good thing the kid figured out how to do the spell on his own."

Dean blanched, cleared his throat, and looked away again. "He's a smart kid," he said quietly. "Gonna go to Stanford one day."

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "Thanks to his big brother, always looking after him and encouraging him. Inspiring him."

Dean felt tears smarting at the backs of his eyes. Sam leaned across the roof of the car on the passenger side, letting his hands fold next to Dean's, almost touching.

"You think – you think he remembered any of it?" Dean swallowed down the lump in his throat.

Sam shook his head. "Nope," he said. "He did the spell exactly right. Went back in time to the exact moment he left, I'm guessing. Didn't remember a thing."

"Yeah," Dean nodded, then pretended to take a deep breath to hide his sniffles. _Damn hay fever,_ he thought doggedly as he wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands.

At least Sam had the decency to get back into the car then, giving Dean a moment to master his emotions, to get a handle on the ache in his chest at the thought of the innocent kid who'd willingly condemned himself to a horrible future, just so he could get back to the brother he loved.

Dean knew a little about that kind of devotion.

**//**//**

When they pulled into the River Pines Motel near Rochester, it was almost completely dark. They unloaded the car in silence, knocking shoulders and moving in sync as usual, sexual tension crackling in the air between them.

 _Same as it ever was,_ Dean muttered to himself, and when Sam threw a bemused half-smile at him, he realized he'd said it out loud.

"Talking to yourself again, old man?" Sam teased, and Dean turned swiftly and kicked the door to the room shut, backing his brother up against it roughly.

"I'll show you 'old man,' old man," Dean growled, shoving his thigh between Sam's legs as he pushed his body hard into Sam's. He slid his hands into Sam's hair and yanked his head down so he could reach his lips, feeling Sam's hands slide down his back to his ass as he pushed his tongue into Dean's mouth. Sam's tongue tangled with his. Sam's big hands squeezed the globes of Dean's ass as Sam's soft hair slipped between his fingers, and it all felt familiar yet strange at the same time. Dean was dizzy with lust, harder than he could ever remember being. When he came up for air Sam kissed a line down his jaw to his neck, kneading the muscles of his ass and back as he sucked the stubbled skin.

"Jesus fuck, Sammy. Why have we never done this before?" Dean gasped as he sucked in lungfuls of air, hyperventilation and lust making his heart pound, making the blood rush in his ears.

"We have," Sam growled and spun them around so that Dean's back was against the door. Sam grabbed Dean's wrists and held them next to his head. Then he leaned back a little when Dean tried to kiss him again.

"Need to look at you," Sam said. He was panting, chest heaving, and his eyes were blown almost solid black, like a demon's. "Need to be sure you're really my brother."

"'Course I'm your brother, you moron," Dean gasped, struggling against Sam's hold on his wrists, bucking helplessly against the solid muscle of Sam's body. "Now shut up and kiss me."

"So impatient," Sam smirked, leaning in to touch his lips to Dean's. This time his kisses were slow and sensual. Dean thought he might go mad with needing more as Sam took his sweet time kissing him thoroughly, sucking on first one lip, then the other, exploring Dean's mouth with his tongue before pulling back to suck on his lips again. When he pulled back to study his work, Dean moaned.

"Those look like my brother's lips," Sam observed speculatively. "That tongue definitely tastes like my brother's tongue."

"Damn it, Sam, cut it out!" Dean warned, struggling ineffectually, managing to rub himself against Sam's thigh so that the friction made him gasp. "Shit! I'm gonna come, you keep doin' that!"

"Can't have that. Need to make sure your dick tastes like my brother's dick first," Sam said, sliding gracefully to his knees.

"Jesus fuck!" Dean cried out as Sam's hot mouth closed over Dean's denim-covered erection. Dean threw his head back and squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to control his orgasm; it had been too long since anyone had done this for him, and the fact that it was Sam was completely blowing his mind. It was almost too much, too fast, and Dean grit his teeth and gazed down at Sam through slitted eyes, determined not to miss a single moment of something he had long ago pushed to the back of his thoughts, to the end of the long line of things he couldn't have, would never experience.

Sam's long, clever fingers made quick work of the button and zipper on his jeans before he yanked them down Dean's thighs along with his boxers so he could get to work. Dean let his hands slide into Sam's hair again, pushing the soft strands through his fingers with infinite care, almost reverence, as Sam's warm, wet mouth closed around him.

"Feels so good, Sammy," Dean murmured as Sam swallowed him down.

Sam looked up at him and Dean almost lost it. Sam's eyes were dark and hooded, and from this angle his brow, cheeks and nose seemed carved in stone, the planes so smooth and chiseled as to be inhumanly perfect, otherworldly. Sam had always seemed too good to be true. Dean had never felt that he completely deserved his beautiful little brother. He'd always held a deep and unshakeable fear that Sam would be stolen away from him one day, as if Sam was only a temporary gift. One day Sam would leave, or someone would come to claim him, reminding Dean what a fool he was for ever thinking that Sam was his to keep.

This couldn't last, he was sure of it. Sam wanting him like this, on his knees as if he worshipped Dean as much as Dean worshipped Sam, fulfilling his darkest fantasies. There had to be a catch. He would wake up and be back in that other timeline, where they were just brothers, where Sam wasn't so deeply bound that he couldn't just get up and leave.

Sam was doing things with his tongue, opening his throat expertly, telling Dean this wasn't Sam's first rodeo. Strange familiarity washed over him again, the sense of having done this before almost overwhelming. Dean canted his hips, thrusting shallowly, watching Sam's face as he breathed through his nose, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes and running down the sharp cut of his cheeks. Dean laid his hand against Sam's cheek, wiping the tears away with his thumb, feeling Sam's muscles working.

When Sam looked up at him again, eyes glittering with unshed tears, Dean lost it. Having Sam on his knees this way was hot enough, but when Sam looked up at him like Dean was his world and nothing else mattered because all Sam saw and felt and tasted was Dean... That kind of adoration from the person Dean loved most just shouldn't be possible. Even in his dreams he'd never imagined Sam like this, such submission from the big man whose faith he relied on like a shield.

Dean lost it, whiting out with the force of his orgasm because he couldn't not give Sam what he wanted. He would always give Sam whatever he wanted. He always had.

When Dean came back to consciousness, his legs were shaking. Sam rose to his feet and gathered his brother's limp body into his arms, kissing his cheeks and his nose before claiming his mouth. Dean could taste himself on Sam's tongue, the bitter, salty fluid making Sam's kiss deeper and dirtier than it had been before he had part of Dean inside him, before he let Dean know that he did.

"Sorry," Dean muttered, voice hoarse from making the embarrassing strangled cries he couldn't help making while Sam was sucking him off.

"Don't be," Sam said, his own voice a grumbling purr that made Dean's toes curl. "I love doing that to you. Love the little noises you make. Love it when you come in my mouth."

"Fuck, Sam," Dean moaned, his dick twitching uselessly. "Where did you learn to talk so dirty?"

"From you, of course," Sam chuckled, low and dark, as he kissed along Dean's jaw to his ear, sucked Dean's earlobe into his mouth, nibbled it with his sharp little teeth.

"Oh fuck, man, I'm so sorry," Dean repeated as Sam started undressing him, gently pulling off his jacket, kissing him senseless as he unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. "I'm done. I don't think I can..."

"It's okay," Sam murmured, pulling Dean's T-shirt over his head, then kneeling down to unlace Dean's boots. "Just let me take care of you."

"Oh – okay," Dean agreed as Sam pulled off one boot, then the other, followed by his socks, jeans and boxers. Sam stayed on his knees for another moment, kissing a line up Dean's chest, kissing his hipbones, burying his face in Dean's belly. Dean blushed, feeling like a voyeur on his brother's private reunion ritual. Sam had missed his brother, that was obvious; getting back to him after thinking he might never have this again was intensely emotional for Sam. Finding out Dean wasn't really _his_ brother, that this other man who looked and acted like Dean didn't have that long history of loving him in the way his brother did, well, what that must have felt like was something Dean didn't want to think about very much.

"I'm sorry," Dean whispered again, running his hand over Sam's head, returning Sam's embrace as best he could. "I know I'm not really him. I'm not like you remember."

Sam lifted his head and looked up at Dean with a tiny smile turning up the edges of his sex-swollen lips. "Yes, you are," Sam assured him. "You're him in every way that counts. I – I can feel it."

And the weird thing was, Dean could feel it, too. Whatever cosmic joke the universe was playing on them, making them spend the rest of their lives together just a little out of sync – as if! – they were still _them._ Even if their timelines weren't precisely aligned, their souls were as perfectly bonded as ever. Dean had a feeling the familiarity would keep hitting him, even as he discovered new ways to make his brother squirm.

And Dean really wanted to watch Sam squirm, wanted to see him come under Dean's mouth and hands as Sam had just done for Dean. He wanted to hear the sounds Sam made when he did it.

"Come on." He tugged lightly on Sam's hair and the big man lifted his head, stopped hugging Dean around the middle for a moment as he took in Dean's smirk and leaned into Dean's hand on his cheek. "Let's get you naked."

"Dean, you don't have to," Sam said, and Dean decided he officially loved the little catch in Sam's voice when he was excited. "I know this is new for you. We don't have to do anything else tonight..."

"Shut up and take your clothes off," Dean commanded, tugging on Sam's T-shirt as the younger Winchester scrambled to obey.

When Sam was as bare as the day he was born, Dean let his eyes sweep over the long limbs and hard muscles, taking in the sinewy strength of Sam's body with a new appreciation. He'd always admired Sam's powerful arms and shoulders, taking for granted that Sam was well-built and tougher than nails, tougher than Dean. He'd been lifted in those strong arms more than once, knew Sam's shapely legs were built for speed. With those long, slender fingers Sam could load a gun or sharpen a knife with remarkable dexterity and efficiency.

Sam Winchester was a bad-ass hunter whom Dean would have respected and admired even if he wasn't Dean's brother. But those big hands could be gentle, too. Dean had watched Sam soothing a freaked-out witness too many times to count, providing comfort with delicate fingers and welcoming arms that were long enough to wrap twice around grief-stricken mothers and sisters and girlfriends.

Dean knew the scars on Sam's chest and back, had bandaged and sutured the wounds that had caused them, just as Sam had done for him. Every scar was where it should be, every memory of how it got there was familiar. As Dean mapped out Sam's skin first with his eyes, then his fingers, and finally his mouth. He knew Sam was doing the same thing, remembering moments from their shared history, intimately.

Maybe a little more intimately than Dean remembered them, but probably not by much. Sex might have added a dimension of heightened awareness during times of duress and danger, but it couldn't make them much more invested in each other emotionally or physically. Sam and Dean had always been attached at the hip, as well as the heart; adding another layer of closeness was only icing on the cake.

"Did we always fuck after a hunt?" Dean asked as he slid his hand down Sam's chest, letting it rest on his hip as he took a step closer.

"Not always," Sam admitted. "But usually."

"Before or after beers?"

"Depended," Sam shrugged as Dean pushed his other hand into Sam's hair, tipping his head down so Dean could reach his mouth. "Lately, not as much."

"Quickies in my Baby are hard on the knees," Dean murmured against Sam's lips. "Better to get you someplace more comfortable."

"That's what you _say,_ old man," Sam gasped as Dean kissed a line from his mouth down his throat. "I never knew you to turn down sex, though. Wherever we are."

"Sounds like me." Dean smiled against Sam's collarbone, pressing his face into Sam's shoulder as he slid his hand over Sam's back, exploring the strong muscles there, tracing the scars with his fingers. It pained him not to remember falling to his knees and giving head as Sam had just done for him, knowing how often it probably happened when they were both younger, how athletic their sex lives had probably been when they were in their twenties.

Not to be outdone by his younger self, by Sam's memories of the eager, desperate young man he had once been, Dean started to slide to his knees in front of Sam. He was determined to give Sam the best blow job of his life, even if Dean hadn't ever done it before. It couldn't be that hard, could it? He knew what he liked, knew how to make it good when he was on the receiving end. And Sam had obviously had plenty of experience, had pushed Dean's buttons till he was absolutely flying.

He could do that.

"Dean," Sam breathed before he could kneel down, grasping his biceps to pull him up again. "You don't have to do that."

"Yes, I do," Dean insisted, stumbling so he fell against Sam's chest. Sam held him there, moving them both toward the bed. "Gotta take care of my little brother, same as always."

"Not on the floor, you don't," Sam murmured against the side of Dean's head, kissing his temple softly. "You've got bad knees. Stop being so macho."

And when Sam lay down on the bed and spread himself out for Dean, smirking as Dean gazed at Sam's miles of tan skin, drinking him in like a glass of cool water, Dean had to admit the kid was onto something. Kneeling between Sam's long legs on the soft bed was much nicer than kneeling on the hard, dirty floor. Gazing down at the feast of sinewy muscle and warm limbs laid out for him, then following his gaze with his hands and his mouth, Dean relished the little gasps and moans Sam made, as if Dean knew exactly what he was doing and Sam was getting exactly what he wanted most.

It surprised him how familiar it felt, being with Sam this way. Dean was sure he'd never done this before; except for the few brief hand-jobs he'd given sleazy landlords for money back when he and Sam were young and alone, he'd never even considered having sex with a guy, fantasies of Jack Harper excepted.

But this was Sam, and loving Sam in all kinds of ways had always been part of Dean's fantasy life, hidden deep inside so he couldn't fuck things up between them any more than they already were. Now he regretted not finding a way to express those feelings. Now that he knew it could've happened between them long ago and everything would've been all right, or at least as all right as it ever was, Dean wished he'd made a move earlier. He wished he had a lifetime of memories of loving Sam the way Sam had.

But it was probably only fair, he decided as he kissed a trail down Sam's chest and belly to his smooth hips. It was probably just what he deserved, after being such a jerk as to leave Sam in the past, desperate and lonely and missing Dean, doing everything he could to get back to him. Dean didn't deserve to get Sam back, not after what he'd almost done to him. Dean didn't deserve to have this after that.

But it wasn't up to him. By some miracle Dean didn't even want to understand, Sam had forgiven him, or at least accepted what he'd said. Sam still wanted him, flaws and all.

Living the rest of his life not remembering twelve years of sex with the love of his life was something Dean could live with, he decided as Sam writhed and made perfect little cut-off gasping sounds beneath him. It was definitely better than he deserved.

And it definitely beat the alternative.

**//**//**

The next morning they drove to Niagara Falls.

"You know people used to come here for their honeymoons." Sam teased incredulously when Dean pulled off at the exit.

"What's your point, Sam?" Dean snapped. "It's on the way. We need to take in the sights more, you said so yourself."

They stood shoulder to shoulder on the observation platform, watching the water cascade over the rocky cliffs, admiring the majesty of nature and reflecting on their own small place in it.

When Sam's hand touched his, Dean almost pulled away, then allowed Sam to tangle their fingers together. What the hell? Not like anybody here knew them.

"You gave me a second chance, Dean," Sam said softly "A second chance at getting it right, with you. I won't let you down."

Dean's chest clenched and tears smarted in his eyes. For a moment he couldn't speak; he rubbed Sam's hand with his thumb and stared at the roiling water, letting the foggy mist mask the tears dampening his cheeks.

"I know you won't, Sam," he said finally, his voice choked and broken. He cleared his throat. "You always get it right in the end. It's what you do. I – I always wanted what was best for you."

"And I always wanted _you,_ " Sam said. "Maybe I didn't understand that when I was thirteen, but it's true. I get it now."

"You always had me, Sam," Dean reminded him softly, too choked up to trust himself to say more.

"I know," Sam said, squeezing Dean's hand.

**//**//**

The drive back to the bunker was slow and casual. The Winchesters stopped at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Big Muskie's Bucket in McConnelsville, Ohio, and the Evel Knievel Museum in Topeka. They stayed in five motels, inaugurating each one with their particular brand of honeymoon behavior. Dean got lots of sex and finally lost his gay-virginity, and Sam did his best to convince Dean that there wasn't a single thing about that other timeline that he missed. Being Dean's "first" again, after all the years of deception and betrayal and mixed messages, was a gift that Dean tried hard to receive graciously and gratefully. Sam's utter devotion, in every way possible, might have shocked Dean at first, but he had a feeling it was something he would eventually get used to.

Sam on a mission was familiar, even if the mission was being with Dean, which was still hard to believe.

**//**//**

"Does Mom know about us?" Dean couldn't help asking the night they returned to the bunker. They lay side-by-side in Dean's bed, warm and sated and almost asleep, and when Sam shifted wordlessly beside him, Dean wondered if he would answer. He knew he was treading on delicate ground.

"Yeah, I think so," Sam said finally. "I think it's part of why she leaves us alone so much."

"You think she's okay with it?" God, where did Dean get his nerve? Sam really brought out the confessional side of him.

"Not really," Sam admitted. "She probably feels guilty about it. Her family was all kinds of messed up, incest-wise. Intermarriage between cousins was pretty common. Lots of too-close-for-comfort relationships, born out of all that paranoia and insularity. Probably Mom thinks it's her fault we turned out this way."

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Dean agreed. He rolled onto his side and traced Sam's profile with his fingertips, amazed that he could still find something about Sam that he hadn't already obsessed about. The kid had a seriously killer profile.

"You think we can fix it?" he asked after a moment, changing the subject. He hadn't been able to ask directly if Sam preferred the other timeline, the other Dean, the one with whom he shared twelve years of memories. The one who had been Sam's lover.

Dean knew Sam understood because he took a deep breath and turned his head to look at Dean before answering.

"Do you want to?"

"Nah, I'm good," Dean said. "You?"

Sam gazed thoughtfully at Dean for several seconds, his eyes glittering in the dark. "Nah, I'm good," he agreed softly.

Dean smiled.

 

_fin_


End file.
